PARIS — The European Space Agency stepped up to be Arianespace’s first customer for the next-generation Ariane 6 rocket, while keeping Soyuz as a backup option.

Signing the contract on behalf of the European Commission and the European Union, ESA agreed to launch four Galileo navigation satellites two at a time on Ariane 6 rockets. The missions will both use the Ariane 62, the lighter version equipped with two side-boosters, and will launch from Europe’s Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana in late-2020 and mid-2021.

ArianeGroup, formerly Airbus Safran Launchers, is building the Ariane 6, with ESA overseeing the rocket’s procurement and architecture. Arianespace has a first-ever demonstration flight of the Ariane 6 on July 16, 2020.

“Arianespace is especially proud to have won this first launch contract for the Ariane 6 from its loyal customers and partners, the European Commission (DG Growth) and ESA,” Stéphane Israël, Arianespace CEO, said in a Sept. 14 statement.

ESA’s contract includes the ability to rely on Soyuz, also launching from the Guiana Space Centre, if the Ariane 6 is not able to complete the mission. Arianespace launched 14 of the 18 Galileo satellites currently in orbit using Soyuz rockets; an Ariane 5 launched the most recent four.

The Ariane 6 and Vega C rockets are intended to replace Arianespace’s existing launch family of the Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega, assuring European access to space with vehicles that can compete more effectively with SpaceX and other rising launch competitors.

Arianespace has another four-satellite Galileo launch using the Ariane 5 “Evolution Storable” version in December, followed by another in summer 2018.

Galileo satellites weigh roughly 750-kilograms each and operate in a 23,000-kilometer medium-Earth orbit. The European Union owns Galileo.

Production and tests of the first flight model for the VINCI engine combustion chamber, in Ottobrunn, Munich. Photo: Arianegroup.

Airbus Safran Launchers, which became ArianeGroup on July 1, has begun construction of the combustion chamber of the first flight model of the Vinci engine at its Ottobrun site near Munich.

Vinci is the re-ignition motor of Ariane 6’s upper stage. Construction has begun following more than 120 successful tests using development models. According to the company, this is a key step towards the success of the first Ariane 6 flight, scheduled for 2020.

The new re-ignition engine will increase the operational flexibility of the Ariane 6 launcher, which the company stated can fulfill a range of missions, including the launch of constellations. Arianegroup is lead contractor for Europe’s Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 launcher families, responsible for both design and the entire production chain, up to and including marketing by its Arianespace subsidiary, as well as for the missiles of the French oceanic deterrent force.

According to Arianegroup, its new identity reflects its existence as an international group and marks its commitment to the current and future success of its large-scale programs as well as its space equipment activities.

Munich, Germany (SPX) Jun 29, 2017
Airbus Safran Launchers, which will be known as ArianeGroup on July 1, 2017, has begun construction of the combustion chamber of the first flight model of the VINCI engine at its Ottobrun site near Munich.
Construction was begun following more than 120 successful tests, using development models. This is a key step towards the success of the first Ariane 6 flight, scheduled for 2020. Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Серия РН Ариан, Airbus Safran Launchers, Safran

Paris (SPX) Jun 26, 2017
The European Space Agency and Airbus Safran Launchers, the 50/50 joint-venture set up by the Airbus and Safran groups, which will become ArianeGroup on July 1, have signed, at the Paris Air Show, the first tranche of the development contract for the future Prometheus LOx-methane engine.
"This signing underlines our determination to prepare now for the future of Europe's launchers beyond 20 Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Европейское космическое агентство, Airbus Safran Launchers, Safran, Prometheus

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus Safran Launchers, the 50/50 joint-venture set up by the Airbus and Safran groups, which will become ArianeGroup on July 1, signed the first tranche of the development contract for the future Prometheus LOx-methane engine at the Paris Air Show. Prometheus is a demonstrator running on Liquid Oxygen (LOx) and methane for a reusable engine. Applications deriving from it will be able to equip future European launchers as of 2030.

The Prometheus project began in November 2015, with partnership investments between the French Space Agency (CNES) and ArianeGroup, but took on a truly European dimension in December 2016, at the last ESA ministerial level conference in Lucerne, Switzerland. Prometheus was then allocated a budget of more than 80 million euros ($89.5 million).

The contract signed today also marked the addition of European industrial partners to the Prometheus demonstrator project, including Avio from Italy, GKN from Sweden, Safran AeroBooster from Belgium, and the German and French entities of ArianeGroup. The first tests are scheduled for 2020 in Lampoldhausen, Germany, on the site of the German aerospace agency (DLR).

WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency began funding a reusable rocket engine anticipated to be ready for a test-fire demonstration in 2020, the same year as the first launch of the future Ariane 6 rocket.

ESA and Airbus Safran Launchers, the 50-50 joint venture between Airbus and Safran that is rebranding as ArianeGroup, signed a contract to develop Prometheus, a liquid- oxygen-and-methane-fueled engine that would cost 1 million euros ($1.1 million) per copy, or a tenth of what Ariane 5’s Vulcain 2 first-stage engine costs to produce. ArianeGroup is working on Prometheus in parallel with development of Ariane 6, which will initially rely on the expendable Vulcain 2.1 engine.

Prometheus, which started out as a small, joint research initiative between the French space agency CNES and Airbus Safran Launchers, was adopted by ESA in December. ESA foresees the engine entering service around 2030 on future European launch vehicles, not necessarily Ariane 6.

“This signing underlines our determination to prepare now for the future of Europe’s launchers beyond 2030, while pulling out all the stops to ensure an Ariane 6 first flight in 2020,” Alain Charmeau, CEO of ArianeGroup, said in a June 22 statement. “Those two approaches based on continuous competitiveness and innovations are perfectly complementary.”

ESA allocated more than 80 million euros to Prometheus at its December 2016 ministerial conference. The agency did not disclose how much of that money it released with the signing of today’s contract.

Now that it’s an ESA program, Prometheus will see additional industrial partners join ArianeGroup in developing the engine. New partners include Italy-based Avio, manufacturer of the Vega rocket; GKN, a Swedish supplier for Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 components; and Safran’ Belgian subsidiary Safran AeroBooster. The companies intend to leverage new manufacturing methods such as 3D printing, predictive maintenance and digital control, and to test the engine at the German space agency DLR’s Lampoldhausen engine test facility.

The Space industry: an added value in the major European universities courses

Le Bourget, June 21, 2017 – A group of major European space manufacturing industries* and universities** have signed at Le Bourget on the Space Alliance Chalet a memorandum of understanding on an education partnership agreement aiming - through their joint and coordinated efforts - at organizing for multi-nationality teams of top-level students a structured transition between their educational path and their entry in the industry world. This is intended to take place by means of dedicated projects to be developed by teams of students coming from universities in different countries and working on industry's selected priorities, teams being selected by industry via competition.

This initiative, aiming at educating more specifically students by means of a longer industrial project phase has been given the name of: "Advanced Student Team Research in space Industry" (ASTRI), and is intended to materialize into ad hoc specific agreements involving at a time at least one industry and a team of at least five students coming from universities in at least three different countries.

Each ASTRI Program is intended to devote globally eighteen months to carry out a project in industry with a first phase lasting six months that could be part of the thesis final project to accomplish a standard master, while a second phase, lasting the remaining twelve (12) months, would have to be carried out at the premises of one of the industrial Parties.

The MoU enters into force today and will remain valid for four years. It will be implemented via a first cycle of projects from early 2018 to mid-2019, with the corresponding diplomas, namely "First Distinguished Certificate of Excellence", being delivered in mid-2019. The MoU is intended to open to new Parties (industry and/or universities) at the end of each academic cycle.

About Thales Alenia Space
Thales Alenia Space brings over 40 years of experience to the design, integration, testing and operation of innovative space systems for telecommunications, navigation, Earth observation, environmental management, exploration, science and orbital infrastructures. A joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), Thales Alenia Space also teams up with Telespazio to form the parent companies’ “Space Alliance”, which offers a complete range of services and solutions. Thales Alenia Space has built up unrivaled expertise in dual (civil-military) missions, constellations, flexible high-throughput payloads, altimetry, meteorology, and high-resolution radar and optical observation. The company capitalizes on its strong legacy, while also making innovation a key to its strategy. By offering a continuous stream of new products and expanding its global footprint, Thales Alenia Space has established its leadership in today’s fast-evolving space sector. Thales Alenia Space posted consolidated revenues of about 2.4 billion euros in 2016 and has 7,980 employees in nine countries. www.thalesaleniaspace.com

MT LAUREL, New Jersey — Fresh off the successful launch of an all-electric satellite on an Ariane 5 rocket, satellite fleet operator Eutelsat announced June 2 a commitment to launch three more satellites with Arianespace, and signaled an early interest in using the next-generation Ariane 6.

Paris-based Eutelsat said the Eutelsat-7C satellite from Space Systems Loral, the African Broadband Satellite from Thales Alenia Space and the first Eutelsat Quantum satellite from Airbus Defence and Space will all launch with the European launch provider.

“I believe this puts us in the right conditions for our upcoming discussions on Ariane 6,” Yohann Leroy, Eutelsat’s deputy CEO and chief technical officer, said in a post-launch speech at the Guiana Space Centre’s Jupiter control room.

Ariane 6, the successor to Ariane 5, is under development by ArianeGroup, the new name for Airbus Safran Launchers, and is expected to be roughly half the cost of the Ariane 5. The rocket’s first launch is scheduled for 2020.

Arianespace plans to launch Eutelsat-7C in 2018, followed by Eutelsat Quantum and the African Broadband Satellite in 2019. Chief Executive Stephane Israel said all three will launch on Ariane 5 rockets.

“Our hope is that Ariane 6 will subsequently take over so that we can help Eutelsat meet its objectives even more efficiently,” he said in a June 2 written statement.

Eutelsat’s latest satellite, the Airbus Defence and Space-built Eutelsat-172b, launched June 1 on the lower berth of an Ariane 5. The heavier ViaSat-2 satellite for ViaSat took the launcher’s upper position.

Eutelsat has one other satellite, Eutelsat 5 West B, assigned to an International Launch Services Proton rocket mission in 2018. A joint Orbital ATK-Airbus Defence and Space manufacturing team is building the satellite.

In March, Eutelsat also announced it would launch a yet-to-be-ordered satellite on Blue Origin’s future New Glenn reusable rocket.

The joint venture of Airbus and Safran was created in 2015 as part of a reorganization of the European launch vehicle industry that also included plans to develop the next-generation Ariane 6 launch vehicle.

The name change, which was announced Wednesday but takes effect July 1, is intended to provide greater brand coherence with its subsidiary Arianespace. [Airbus Safran Launchers]

The second Long March 5 rocket is being assembled for a launch next month. The rocket, China’s largest launch vehicle, is scheduled to launch the Shijian-18 in June from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre. The satellite, weighing an estimated seven metric tons, will be the one of the heaviest satellites launched to date to geostationary orbit and will demonstrate a new satellite bus and high-throughput communications technologies. [gbtimes]

HP says a new computer technology could support future human missions to Mars. Hewlett Packard Enterprise said its “memory-driven computing” technology can ensure continued advances in computing capability even if Moore’s Law of increasing processing power breaks down. Such a computing system, the company argues, could be ideal for human missions to Mars, serving as a substitute for Mission Control far from Earth. [GeekWire]

Paris, France (SPX) May 17, 2017
Airbus Safran Launchers, the joint venture created at the initiative of the Airbus and Safran groups in order to reorganize the European launchers sector, is to be known as ArianeGroup. The change in corporate name will be effective as of July 1, 2017.
This change in identity, embodied in one of Europe's biggest successes, is the logical next step following the decision of the ESA Member S Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Европейское космическое агентство, Safran, Airbus Safran Launchers

Airbus Safran Launchers and its industrial partners have passed a major milestone in the development of Ariane 6, under contract with the European Space Agency (ESA). The Maturity Gate 6.1 review confirmed that the maturity of the industrialization of Ariane 6 is sufficient to begin production of the ground qualification models for the future European launcher, in accordance with the objectives of the program. This step follows on from Maturity Gate 5, which in 2016, had enabled Airbus Safran Launchers to validate the technical, industrial and programming characteristics of Ariane 6 and to continue with development of the launcher with its partners, as planned.

The Ariane 6 development method, called “Ariane 6 Way,” comprises 15 major steps, six of which have already been completed. “Maturity Gate 11” will give the green light for the first flight of Ariane 6, while “Maturity Gate 15” will mark the end of development and the start of full operational capacity.

Each “Maturity Gate” takes place under the responsibility of Airbus Safran Launchers, and involves independent experts. “Maturity Gate 6.2” is slated to take place at the end of 2017, so that the production of the first Ariane 6 flight models can begin.

Airbus Safran Launchers is building Ariane 6, which is also ideal for constellations, on behalf of the ESA. It will be a modular launcher available in two versions, Ariane 62 and Ariane 64.

Paris, France (SPX) Apr 24, 2017
With "Maturity Gate 6.1", Airbus Safran Launchers and its industrial partners have passed a major milestone in the development of Ariane 6, under contract with the European Space Agency (ESA).
The review confirmed that the maturity of the industrialization of Ariane 6 is sufficient to begin production of the ground qualification models for the future European launcher, in accordance with t Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Европейское космическое агентство, Серия РН Ариан, Safran, Airbus Safran Launchers

COLORADO SPRINGS — The European Commission will commit to buying at least five Ariane 6 and two Vega C launches per year when both rockets are in operation, Elzbieta Bienkowska, the European Commission’s lead space commissioner, said Wednesday.

Airbus Safran Launchers and Arianespace have said that closing the business case for Ariane 6 and Vega C will require a firm government commitment to use the new rockets.

Speaking at the 33rd Space Symposium here, Bienkowska acknowledged that the European Commission had heard these concerns and would ensure European governments collectively serve as an anchor customer for the launchers.

In an interview with SpaceNews after her speech, Bienkowska said this aggregated demand would support the annual five Ariane 6 and two Vega C launches that Ariane 6 prime contract Airbus Safran Launchers and launch provider Arianespace had pegged as the needed amount.

Ariane 6 is the successor to the Ariane 5 and Europeanized Soyuz; Vega C is an improved version of Vega, and will use the same first-stage engine as Ariane 6’s strap-on boosters.

Bienkowska also said Europe’s confidence in the suitability of Ariane 6 and Vega C, both of which are single-use rockets, remains unshaken by the early success of SpaceX and Blue Origin in demonstrating their reusable rockets.

“We observe very closely the ongoing revolution in the launcher market, especially here in the United States, around the principle of reusability,” she said. “Europe’s answer is the development of the next-generation of cost effective, reliable and competitive European launchers: Ariane 6 and Vega C.”

Leveling the playing field

Europe has long envied the large number of government launches provided to domestic launch entities in the United States and in Russia — home to Arianespace’s two biggest competitors: Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX and Moscow-based Khrunichev.

For the past three years, SpaceX has performed two to three launches annually for U.S. government customers, mainly NASA, and is starting to win military launch contracts following Air Force certification in 2015. Prior to certification, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance conducted nearly all U.S. military launches, often close to 10 per year, as well as some civil and commercial launches. Russia’s Proton launches have been roughly half government, half commercial through Khrunichev’s International Launch Services subsidiary.

“We are competing with launchers which are mostly dedicated to their domestic markets, which is a significant advantage, markets that most of the time are closed to other launchers,” Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel told SpaceNews last month. “So it is absolutely normal that we organize institutional launches around European launchers.”

“It is important, even vital for Ariane 6 and Vega C, to have this commitment from formal European institutions,” he added.

Israel said European government launches, at 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) annually, account for less than a third of Arianespace’s 5-billion-euro contract backlog. The U.S. launch market, according to Airbus Safran Launchers, is about 65-percent government demand. For Russia’s launch industry, the figure is closer to 76 percent.

Israel said a guarantee of annual launches would replace the roughly 100-million-euros-a-year Arianespace receives under Europe’s Launchers Exploitation Accompaniment Programme to keep Ariane 5 in service.

Arianespace shareholders voted unanimously to convert the launch operator to a Simplified Joint-Stock (SAS) company at its annual general meeting held in Paris. The modification aims to streamline and modernize Arianespace’s governance to achieve greater responsiveness, facilitate relationships with industrial prime contractors, and be coherent with the new shareholder structure of Arianespace’s holding company, Arianespace Participation.

The new legal form also comes with changes to the governance of Arianespace, allowing for more cohesive working coordination between the launch operator and its parent company. With these changes, Airbus Safran Launchers Chief Executive Officer Alain Charmeau becomes chairman of the board of directors of Arianespace Participation. Stephane Israel, CEO of both Arianespace and Arianespace Participation, and our Satellite Executive of the Year for 2016, joins the executive committee of Airbus Safran Launchers as director of Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 commercial launcher programs. Alain Charmeau had held this position provisionally.

“This evolution in governance is consistent with the steps taken since 2014 to streamline the European launcher industry. It places the entire industrial organization of Ariane 5, from production to marketing, under the sole responsibility of Stephane Israel, while preparing for the optimal development, production and commercialization of Ariane 6 for the benefit of Arianespace’s customers,” said Charmeau.

The companies involved submitted the change to the European Space Agency (ESA) on March 16 after being approved by Arianespace staff representatives in February. Airbus Safran Launchers has held a 74 percent stake in Arianespace since last December.

WASHINGTON — The United Kingdom’s would-be launch service providers — a mix of British startups and international primes — told Parliament this week the country’s goal of seeing a first launch from within its borders by 2020 is at this point most likely wishful thinking.

That outlook stands in contrast to that of U.K. Space Agency Interim Chief Executive Katherine Courtney, who said late last month that she was “confident that 2020 will see the first launches from British soil.”

Officials from several aerospace companies testifying before Parliament March 27 did not share Courtney’s optimism, but they praised the government for creating policies that should make fertile ground for a British launch industry to emerge.

The U.K. launched its first rocket in 1971, orbiting the Prospero satellite on a Black Arrow rocket, but the mission took place from Australia, not Europe, and the U.K. government had already canceled the launch program by the time the mission occurred. Launch came back to the fore in 2009 when the U.K. set the goal of growing its space industry to comprise 10 percent of the global space industry by 2030.

Parliament released a draft spaceflight bill Feb. 21 detailing the country’s proposed regulatory framework for space launch. The draft bill is described as “part of a wider Government programme to stimulate the market for space activities (primarily small satellite launch) and sub-orbital spaceflight activities in the United Kingdom from 2020.”

In a March 27 parliamentary session in the U.K. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Stephen Metcalfe, committee chair, asked industry how feasible it would be to achieve a first launch in three years time.

“Hitting 2020 is going to be pretty nigh impossible,” Richard Peckham, business development director for Airbus Group, replied.

“[For] horizontal launch, if you are using an existing airport, I suppose there is less infrastructure [needed],” Peckham explained. “For vertical launch, if you are going to go through all of the planning process and environmental assessments and all the things you need to do, once you’ve chosen your site in parallel with all the legislation and so on that’s going, I would say 2020 is very optimistic.”

Other members of industry, though less bleak about the prospects of a near-term domestic launch, echoed a similar conviction.

“I’m not quite in the ‘pretty impossible’ count that Richard was in, but it’s certainly very challenging,” said Mark Thomas, managing director of Reaction Engines, a British engine developer with investments from the U.K. Space Agency, the European Space Agency and BAE Systems to build a hypersonic propulsion system for orbital and point to point spaceplane missions.

David Ashford, managing director of Bristol Spaceplanes, a company developing a suborbital spaceplane called Ascender for human spaceflight and microgravity experiments, said his company could have a demonstrator flying a science payload by 2021 at the earliest.

“We can’t honestly claim 2020,” he said.

Orbital Access, a Scotland-based startup designing an air-launch smallsat vehicle, does claim intent to have a first launch by 2020, but was not in attendance during the session.

Legislation in the fast lane

Despite the admissions that industry is unlikely to field a launcher from U.K. soil by 2020, Parliament received praise for the fast pace of regulatory developments to support a launch industry. The U.K. government created the draft bill in just six months and shared it with industry for feedback early in the development of the legislation.

Most of the U.K.’s launch ambition is centered around small satellites, which often piggyback on larger missions as secondary payloads. Two major small satellite developers, Airbus subsidiary Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and Clyde Space, and a network of smallsat component suppliers are all based in the U.K. The country is also authorizing and planning to financially assist one or more spaceports, though the process is taking longer than expected.

Industry representatives said the U.K.’s spaceflight regulatory regime needs to have rules specifically tailored for smallsat launches so as to not squelch the market with geostationary-sized taxes and fees. Peckham said licensing missions, for example, shouldn’t have costs that are per satellite if a rocket now has 100 satellites on board instead of one or two.

“We also need to change the insurance,” added Joanne Wheeler, a partner at the law firm Bird & Bird. “At the moment, it’s third party liability insurance per satellite at 16 million euros ($17.4 million), and that simply does not work for constellations. We need to look at different models there.”

Cubesats and other small satellites often cost only a few million dollars to manufacture, meaning such insurance costs per satellite could easily dwarf the entire cost of the spacecraft.

Overall, a thumbs up

Peckham said Airbus Safran Launchers, the Airbus-Safran joint venture that builds the Ariane 5 and future Ariane 6 rockets, views the draft bill as positive toward launch operations in the U.K. Paul Davey, Lockheed Martin Space Systems’ U.K. business development lead, said the bill also appears to be on good footing. “It seems to be going in the right direction at this stage,” he said.

Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp. opened a space technology office in Harwell, Oxfordshire, in 2014. Along with conducting commercial Atlas 5 launches in the U.S., Lockheed Martin has an investment in small satellite launcher Rocket Lab of the U.S. and New Zealand and is building a significant portion of Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Dream Chaser mini-shuttle.

“From my perspective, we just have to keep the pace on this,” said Thomas. “It is very encouraging that we see a [draft] bill within six months. To see another iteration of that in an equal period of time, that would be fantastic.”

Ashford said the bill appears flexible enough to cater to vertical and horizontal launch systems, despite the vast differences between the two.

WARSAW, Poland — Airbus Defence and Space saw its revenue decline in 2016 thanks in part to a 2.21 billion euros ($2.32 billion) charge on Europe’s troublesome A400M military transport aircraft program, but the division’s order intake was up over the prior year.

“It was not an easy year,” Airbus chief executive Tom Enders said Feb. 22 during a press conference to announce the company’s full-year results. “But I think we demonstrated a very strong industrial performance.”

The issues related to the A400M program which, according to Airbus, “remains an area of concern,” dominated the conference, but the European group included three of its space projects among last year’s highlights. These comprised the launch of the first satellite of the SpaceDataHighway program, the finalization of the Airbus Safran Launchers joint venture, and the completion of the 76th successful launch by Ariane 5 satellite launch vehicle.

The SpaceDataHighway is to use space-based lasers to speed data between Earth observation satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and aircraft, and ground stations in Europe, using the European Data Relay Satellite (ERDS) geostationary satellites as relay towers.

On Feb. 17, Ariane 5 completed its 77th flight to put two telecommunications satellites on geostationary transfer orbit. The group’s next-generation launcher Ariane 6 is scheduled for a first test flight in 2020.

The finalization of the Airbus Safran Launchers joint venture, which is developing Ariane 6, enabled the transition to the new entity from the two parent companies. The July 30 consolidation also allowed Airbus to report a net capital gain of 1.175 billion euros.

Airbus said that Defence and Space showed strong order momentum in satellites and military aircraft.

“The space business is doing very well,” Enders commented, hinting at the fact that the division reported a book-to-bill ratio of above one, as more orders were received than filled last year.

Annual revenues down as order intake climbs

This said, a look at the division’s results for last year reveals a more complex picture. Defence and Space reported revenues of 11.8 billion euros for 2016, down 9.4 percent compared with a year earlier. Space systems represented 31 percent of the external revenue split, preceded by military aircraft, at 42 percent, while communications, intelligence and security accounted for the remaining 27 percent of the division’s revenues for last year. Airbus said the division’s 2016 results were negatively impacted by a portfolio reshaping of about 1 billion euros.

On a positive note, the Defence and Space division posted a higher order intake for 2016, at some 15.39 billion euros, up 6.6 percent compared with a year earlier.

Meanwhile, last December’s meeting of the European Space Agency’s ministerial council spurred hopes by Airbus management that Defence and Space would be ensured a steady order book, which totalled 41.5 billion euros in 2016, in the coming years. The council committed to invest a total of 10.3 billion euros in space activities in the forthcoming years to help ensure Europe “remains a strong, independent and competitive player” in the sector.

Kourou, French Guiana (ESA) Feb 15, 2017
For its first launch of the year, Ariane 5 successfully completed its mission from the European space port of Kourou (French Guiana) for the 77th consecutive time, placing two telecommunications satellites in geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).
The launch performance achieved by this Ariane 5 ECA was 10,450 kg in GTO (of which 9,569 kg was accounted for by the satellites). The launcher imp Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Серия РН Ариан, Серия РН Ариан 5, Ариан 5 ECA, Safran

In a useful reminder that the future of rocketry is reusable, France’s Prometheus reusable engine program will receive funding from the European Space Agency (ESA). The new engine is designed to be a direct competitor to the reusable SpaceX Merlin rocket engine.

The ASL Prometheus rocket engine (right) is a follow-on of the ASL Vulcain 2.1 rocket engine, which ASL designed for its Ariane 6 rocket program. The Prometheus is designed to be cheaper ( €1Mln EUR or $1.41Mln CDN for the Prometheus as compared to 10 times the cost for the Vulcain) and take extensive advantage of new technologies and production methods, including 3-D printing. As outlined in the September 15th, 2016 BBC News post, "Clear path to Ariane 6 rocket introduction," the current Ariane 5 rocket, "although remarkably reliable and consistent in its performance, costs substantially more to build and launch than some of its competitors - in particular, the Falcon 9 rocket operated by SpaceX in the US." Graphic c/o ASL.

But that useful reminder is also a shot across the bow of organizations like Maritime Launch Services (MLS), the recently incorporated Nova Scotia based company formed by three US based partners, who are attempting to sell spaceports filled with 45 year old Ukrainian based single use, hypergolic propellant based rocket technology, to a credulous East coast populace.

The article also quoted Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL) CEO Alain Charmeau who said that FLPP will allocate €85Mln EUR ($120Mln CDN) to fund research and development leading to a 2020 test firing of the Prometheus engine.

Now that Prometheus is an ESA program, Charmeau expects more countries will get involved. As an ESA associate member, Canada could certainly participate in the program.

MLS is essentially acting as a local agent for Yuzhnoye, a designer of satellites, rockets and once, even Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) ), which is currently looking for at least $100Mln CDN to fund its Cyclone-4 rocket launch facility.

MLS CEO John Isella even continues to work out of the Washington, DC Yuzhnoye office, where he also works as the North American representative for Yuzhnoye "business development."

As outlined in the article, once funded, the "first launch could be as soon as late 2019 if all goes according to plan." Of course, those plans don't seem to work out very often.

An SS-18 rocket body in front of Yuzhnoye Design Office headquarters. As outlined on the company website, "Yuzhnoye State Design Office is one of the most well-known and recognized scientific and design companies in the world." Photo c/o Yuzhnoye Design Office.

However, as outlined in the April 16th, 2015 Space News post, "Brazil Pulling Out of Ukrainian Launcher Project," that deal eventually fell apart over escalating costs and questions about Cyclone-4's ability to take market share away from SpaceX and other low cost rocket providers.

In an interview, Bolden said he was worried the Trump administration “seems to be curtailing the availability of valuable data to decision makers” in the areas of climate and other environmental research.

“That’s what I think is threatened if we’re not careful with the policies of the new administration,” he said.

Bolden added he thought that NASA’s exploration programs, including SLS and Orion, “won’t be bothered” by the administration. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]

More News

Launch problems have depressed forecasts for growth in the number of small satellites. A forecast issued Wednesday by SpaceWorks Enterprises projected up to 2,400 satellites weighing between 1 and 50 kilograms will be seeking launch from 2017 through 2023, a figure 20 percent below what it predicted last year. Launch failures and other delays have reduced the number of such smallsats launched from 158 in 2014 to 101 last year, although SpaceWorks expects that number to rebound this year. Growth in mass in some satellites, particularly for communications systems, also contributed to the diminished growth. [SpaceNews]

A French effort to develop a reusable engine now has European Space Agency support. The Prometheus engine project will receive $91 million from ESA’s Future Launchers Preparatory Program to support its development, leading to a test firing in 2020. Airbus Safran Launchers and the French space agency CNES supported initial work on Prometheus, which uses liquid oxygen and methane propellants and is designed to be one-tenth the cost of the Vulcain 2.1 engine to be used on the Ariane 6. Prometheus could become part of a future reusable launch vehicle program. [SpaceNews]

A German is the latest to join ESA’s astronaut corps. ESA announced Thursday that Matthias Maurer, a finalist in the agency’s 2009 astronaut selection process, will join the corps and be eligible for future missions. Maurer, who has a doctorate in materials science, has been working as a crew support engineer at ESA since the 2009 selection round. [Deutsche Welle]

Volcanoes erupted on Mars for at least half of the planet’s history. Analysis of a Martian meteorite found in Africa in 2012 found that the the meteorite is a volcanic rock that formed 2.4 billion years ago. While Mars is not volcanically active today, the meteorite indicates that volcanoes were active there for at least the first half of the planet’s history. [Space.com]

WASHINGTON — A French reusable rocket engine program is getting a boost from the European Space Agency, which is ready to sign a contract with Airbus Safran Launchers that would lead to an engine test three years from now.

A small team of engineers from Airbus Safran Launchers and the French space agency CNES have poured a few million euros since 2015 into a liquid oxygen and-methane-fueled reusable engine dubbed Prometheus. ESA leaders agreed during December’s ministerial conference in Lucerne, Switzerland, to make Prometheus part of the agency’s Future Launchers Preparatory Program, or FLPP.

In an interview with SpaceNews, Airbus Safran Launchers CEO Alain Charmeau said FLPP is allocating 85 million euros ($91 million) to Prometheus to fund research and development leading to a 2020 test firing. Now that Prometheus is an ESA program, Charmeau expects more countries will get involved.

“ESA will pay the contract to Airbus Safran Launchers and then Airbus Safran Launchers will cooperate with European industry, of course France and Germany, but we will have also contributions from Italy, Belgium, Sweden and probably a couple of others to a smaller extent,” Charmeau said.

Europe has been reticent to jump into reusability. Both of its next-generation launchers — Ariane 6 and Vega C — will be expendable. Airbus Safran Launchers, ESA’s prime contractor for the Ariane 6, has said the European market does not ensure enough launches to make reusability a profitable pursuit. Charmeau said the Prometheus work ESA has agreed to fund will evaluate the feasibility of developing a reusable engine with drastically lower cost.

“If we have this answer by 2020, then we can work on the evolution of launchers either for reusability or not depending on the size of the market,” he said.

The target price for a Prometheus engine is 1 million euros, one-tenth the cost of the Ariane 6’s liquid-oxygen and liquid-hydrogen Vulcain 2.1 engine. The Prometheus program is making extensive use of new technologies and production methods, including 3-D printing, and a large amount of technical design work already completed in France and Germany, according to an Airbus Safran Launchers presentation.

Charmeau said the market dynamics that have dissuaded the company from reusability in the past are still the same, but the company wants to lay the foundation for long-term launcher development.

“We are preparing the market for 2030. Today we do not have in Europe an engine which has the capability to be reused for the main stage of the launcher. Until we have this engine, it is very difficult to design what could be a new launcher,” he said.

During December’s ministerial, ESA members committed 206.8 million euros to FLPP. Startup PLD Space of Spain, another member of the FLPP program, received 750,000 euros from ESA in November to study liquid-propulsion stage recovery for a small satellite launcher.

Airbus Defence and Space’s reusable first-stage engine concept, the Advanced Expendable Launcher with Innovative engine Economy, or Adeline, is a separate project from Prometheus, Charmeau said, but could combined with the liquid-propulsion system. Adeline proposes returning an Ariane first-stage engine by flying it back with deployable wings and landing on a runway.

“Prometheus might fit very well with this kind of reusable launcher concept,” Charmeau said.

European demand for Ariane 6

Airbus Safran Launchers is also trying to get a guarantee of demand for Ariane 6 launches from European government institutions ahead of its first launch. The company estimates that European government demand for launches accounts for only 27 percent of Arianespace’s launch activity, with the rest coming from the commercial sector. The U.S. market is 65-percent government demand, going largely to domestic launch providers, and the Russian market is 76-percent government, according to Airbus Safran Launchers numbers.

“The target now is to try to federate the European Commission, ESA, Eumetsat and national agencies for similar applications so that we organize a production order to be awarded to Arianespace as quickly as possible in order to give European industry a minimum critical mass for production of Ariane 6, and the same for Vega C,” Charmeau explained.

He said Airbus Safran Launchers is seeking a commitment of five Ariane 6 launches per year, and believes a commitment of two Vega C launches a year for Italy’s Avio would constitute enough demand to provide stability. Charmeau said demand for launches of European satellites is rising and should make this an attainable target.

“We anticipate a slight increase in institutional requirements in line with the increasing space budget in Europe, both at the European Commission level and ESA level, which means that there will be more programs, more satellites and therefore more launch services,” he said.

Charmeau said Airbus Safran Launchers wants to see a European representative, such as the European Commission or ESA, aggregate institutional demand and direct that to Arianespace. Such an organizational method is not in place today, and it is unclear how that might form. Charmeau said Airbus Safran Launchers will also be negotiating whether a guaranteed number of launches per year would replace the subsidy Arianespace gets to provide Europe with assured access to space.

WASHINGTON — A member of Germany’s ruling party said the isolationist signals emanating from the Trump White House are reinforcing the need for Europe to be able to go it alone in space.

“If we recognize the vibrations that the new U.S. government sends over the ocean to us — and maybe it’s not only a vibration — I think it’s very necessary more than ever before that we in Europe have our own capacity and our own competence to enter the space, to shoot satellites into space and to put together all the European competence you can find for a successful mission,” said Norbert Barthle, parliamentary state secretary for Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transportation and Digital Infrastructures.

Barthle was speaking Jan. 27 at Arianespace’s Jupiter Control Center in Kourou, French Guiana, following the successful launch of Hispasat-36W-1, a satellite built by German manufacturer OHB Systems AG and orbited on a Europeanized-Russian Soyuz rocket.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been critical of the European Union and Germany, telling British newspaper The Times in an interview published Jan. 16 that the European Union is “basically a vehicle for Germany,” and adding later that he expects other members will follow the U.K. in exiting the group. Though being part of the EU is not a requirement for being part of the European Space Agency, most members overlap between the two.

ESA has a contract with Airbus Safran Launchers to build Europe’s next-generation medium- and heavy-lift rocket, the Ariane 6, and with Italy’s Avio for the next-generation light-lift launcher, Vega C. The new rockets are to ensure European access to space more cost-effectively than the current Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega family of launchers.

ESA Director General Jan Woerner, speaking before Barthle, highlighted the collective public and private efforts of ESA member states in developing Hispasat-36W-1, a telecommunications satellite for Spanish operator Hispasat.

“This makes a great story at the end of the day that we are not celebrating national success, but we are celebrating here European success, and I think this is very good,” he said.

Woerner, the former chairman of the German Aerospace Center’s executive board, touted space as having an ability to demonstrate “global cooperation beyond earthly crisis,” pointing out the congratulations he received after the launch from Igor Komarov, head of the Russian State Space Corp. Roscosmos regarding the success of the Soyuz launch.

“This shows that we can cooperate even in very difficult political situations. Space can do it and we should always look to that. We need this bridge for the whole globe, not only for two or three countries,” he added.

The European Union, like the United States, sanctioned Russia following its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

Paris, France (SPX) Jan 24, 2017
2016 was a fundamental year for Airbus Safran Launchers: the construction of the company was finalized on 1st July, with integration of all its personnel, activities and sites in France and Germany. On 31st December last, Arianespace joined the Airbus Safran Launchers group, becoming a 74% owned subsidiary following the buy-out of the CNES shares. This finalizes the organization of the Group, wh Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Космическое агентство Франции, Arianespace, Safran, Airbus Safran Launchers

WASHINGTON — The French space agency, CNES, will supply two spacecraft cameras to a team from India competing for the Google Lunar X Prize, and has formed a working group with the Indian Space Research Organization to study reusable launch technology.

CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall, visiting Bangalore, India, with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, announced the agreements in a Jan. 9 statement.

The French space agency signed a letter of intent last June to contribute Color CMOS Camera for Space Exploration, (CASPEX) cameras to Axiom Research Labs, a Bangalore-based startup leading X Prize contender TeamIndus. During Le Gall’s recent trip to India, CNES specified the provision of two CASPEX cameras for TeamIndus’ rover.

CNES described Bangalore as “establishing itself after California as one of the most promising nerve centres of NewSpace.”

“To stay competitive, we need to combine the best innovations and that is the goal of CNES’s partnership with Indian space players,” Le Gall said in the press release.

Teams vying for the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize grand prize must be the first to land a spacecraft on the lunar surface, travel a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit video and other data back to Earth. Team Indus has a contract with ISRO for a launch aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV); Japan-based Hakuto is hitching a ride for its rover on the TeamIndus lander as well.

Although India has its rockets for launching polar-orbiting and geosynchronous satellites, ISRO continues to rely regularly on Evry, France-based Arianespace to orbit Indian satellites. The October launch of GSAT-18 on an Ariane 5 marked the 20th ISRO satellite to launch with the European provider, of which CNES had a 35 percent stake until November when Airbus Safran Launchers purchased its shares.

CNES has now agreed to form a working group on space launcher technologies with ISRO, and to train Indian engineers at its facilities. A technical working group is responsible for gauging synergies between French and Indian rocketry and studying future concepts “especially in the domain of reusable launch vehicles,” according to the press release.

Europe’s future launchers, the Ariane 6 and Vega C, are both expendable rockets, but reusable launch vehicles remain a field of study. In June Airbus Defence and Space unveiled Adeline — short for Advanced Expendable Launcher with Innovative engine Economy — a project that proposes returning the most expensive parts of an Ariane first stage by deploying wings and landing on a runway. French aerospace research agency ONERA also kicked off a three-year research program with six other European partner countries on a semi-reusable vehicle called the Air Launch space Transportation using an Automated aircraft and an Innovative Rocket (ALTAIR), meant for small satellites between 50 and 150 kilograms. ALTAIR would target low Earth orbit missions between 400 and 1,000 kilometers.

In June, ISRO flew an experimental winged spacecraft called the Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator on an HS9 booster, meant to lead the way to a fully reusable two-stage vehicle. The agency’s flagship rocket, the PSLV, is expendable.

Paris, France (SPX) Dec 01, 2016
Following the completion of all the necessary regulatory, consultation and approval procedures, Airbus Safran Launchers has now purchased the shares in Arianespace held by the French space agency CNES (Centre national des etudes spatiales).
The transaction will close on 31st December 2016.
As industrial lead contractor for Ariane 5 and the future Ariane 6, Airbus Safran Launchers was Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Космическое агентство Франции, Серия РН Ариан, Серия РН Ариан 5, Arianespace

28

Q&A | Avio CEO Ranzo on sharing the pie with Germany, and keeping SpaceX from an Italian contract

The recent German-Italian agreement to divide production of casings for the future Ariane 6 rocket’s strap-on boosters, which also serve as the first stage of the Italian-led Vega-C small-satellite launcher, was a victory for political harmony in Europe.

But what about the Ariane 6 and Vega business models?Scrapping a single producer of casings, Avio SpA of Colleferro, Italy, in favor of dual sourcing with OHB-owned MT Aerospace of Augsburg, Germany, will reduce the scale economies that are part of the overall Ariane 6/Vega cost equation.

The German side argued that a new technology will reduce casing cost by 30 percent, compensating for the costs incurred in creating and maintaining two separate production lines.

In an interview, Avio Chief Executive Giulio Ranzo conceded the cost penalty with a divided production line but said the German technology, in addition to achieving political consensus in Europe, is worth the effort.

The current-generation Vega has successfully conducted its first seven missions. The eighth launch, of Turkey’s Gokturk optical Earth observation satellite, is scheduled for Dec. 5.

Starting in 2019, the upgraded Vega Vega-C is expected to be operational. It has 50 percent more payload-carrying power than the current Vega, capable of placing 2,300 kilograms of satellite payload into a sun-synchronous orbit.

Ranzo discussed the ongoing effort to reduce Vega’s production and operating costs, the bittersweet agreement with Germany and what he said was his firm intention to help Arianespace win contracts to launch Italy’s two Cosmo-SkyMed-2 radar reconnaissance satellites.

To get Vega costs down you need to launch at leastthree times at year?

A: Yes, and even more than three. We already did three last year. The flight frequency is mainly a case of whether the satellites are delivered on time. Arianespace has already sold 10 Vega launchers for the next three years so we presume an average rate of three per year

What about Vega operating costs at the European spaceport in French Guiana?

In each of the seven flights we have managed, we’ve reduced systematically the duration of the launch campaign, including the launcher’s integration, down to a point where we have no more capacity bottlenecks at the launch site and can do four launches in a given year, perhaps even five.

How long is the campaign now?

Around 23 days. We can possibly trim it a little bit more. Arianespace has demonstrated it can do 12 launches a year between Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega, and we think we can do 15.

What is Avio’s ambition in Arianespace?

We have an important partner in Arianespace and with Airbus Safran Launchers, the Ariane 6 prime contractor. We want to realize as many synergies as we can between the two prime contractors, Avio and ASL, to optimize cost and make the offer more competitive.

We have reached a consensus on the synergies. Vega-C and Ariane 6 will be so linked to each other with the first stage of Vega being the strap-on booster for Ariane 6 that both are incentivized together. The more we optimize one launcher, the more we optimize the other.

You are a big industrial player, but a small Arianespace shareholder.

We are a 3 percent shareholder in Arianespace. The issue here is not one of equity ownership. Arianespace is our selected gateway to the market. The equity share is irrelevant. It makes sense for ASL to have the majority stake. And once they have the majority it doesn’t matter whether we have a 25 percent share or a 3 percent.

Italy and Germany agreed to divide production of the P120 casing between you and MT Aerospace of Germany on the assumption that MT’s technology ultimately lowers production cost. What if it doesn’t?

If we knew all the answers to new technology and new programs that would mean there is no challenge. This decision signals that European industry is truly making an effort for change, and even pointing at a target which they are not necessarily sure they will reach.

European member states have agreed to build a new family of launchers that needs to be much more cost competitive. The decision on the second production line doesn’t surprise me. It’s similar to other challenges were are having in many other parts of the launcher and the cost of ground operations.

We have big challenges and we accept them. We are confident that we can achieve good results.

Doesn’t consolidating production all at one site reduce unit costs compared to running two separate facilities?

Yes, but I am an industrialist, not a policymaker. These are political-level decisions, not industrial. If Ariane 6 was mine, I would be doing it all in one place. But Ariane 6 is a European program that has the participation of many countries. We need to take that into account.

You sized the industrial plant in Colleferro for 35-40 boosters per year and gave Airbus Safran Launchers price quotes based on that. Now production will be divided. What is the effect on your operation?

It’s more complicated than that. Avio has full responsibility for the integrated motor case, which is composed of many different parts — all ultimately assembled in Colleferro. So our production capacity is not cut by half.

Certain activities are going to be procured from Germany, hopefully with a more competitive technology that, overall, will make it more cost competitive. This is viable, and why not?

But the production activities will not be 50-50 between Germany and Italy. Only certain activities will be split 50-50. For example, the overall assembly of the insulated motor cases for P120, the external insulation, all the other equipment installed externally, will be done in Italy and then shipped to the launch site.

So all the production in Germany will be shipped to Colleferro before final departure?

That’s correct. They will primarily be doing the booster case in carbon fiber material with a slightly different technology than ours. Then, for practical reasons, they will also apply the internal thermal protection. But to complete an insulated motor case, there are different parts that need to be assembled together, including the liner for the internal part of the motor case, which separates the internal core of the case from the propellant. It’s a very delicate part and we are familiar with this because of course we manufacture propellant. We will install this for all the booster cases.

The external thermal production will also be installed by us as we have significant experience with that, as well as the overall finishing of the product, which will be done here.

The German minister responsible for space applauded the agreement as being a boost for Germany’s return and great news for Germany.

Certainly it is good news for Germany that they are doing one-half of the carbon-fiber booster cases and the application of the internal thermal protection. If they are successful with this innovative technology, they will come up to speed being competitive and state of the art.

That’s good for us as well, and all of European industry. Otherwise the current technology would very soon become obsolete. And I think for them it is good to stay in the game.

And if the cost savings don’t materialize? Someone presumably will pay the bill, and I guess it’s not Avio.

You can rest assured of that. The member states will at that point analyze the situation and determine what to do. But we will not just go to sleep and then wake up in 2025 and find out that unfortunately the cost is too high. It’s a development path. As we approach different milestones, we will assess issues and define corrective actions.

The same question could be raised about any part of the Ariane 6 program, which is based on being extremely cost competitive: Are we sure that the cost targets will be met? If not, then what?

If we only set targets we were sure we could meet, I would tell you we are not building a competitive launcher.

When does the new production line start in Germany?

They will start to manufacture flight items by 2021, or 2022, depending on when their development is completed and qualified. Bu we have intermediate milestones to see how we’re doing — in particular, in mid-2018, when we have an important milestone review. We will see then where we stand.

So the full-up production capacity at Augsburg won’t occur until Vega-C has been in operation for three years?

A: Around there, yes. The first first flight items for both Ariane 6 and Vega-C will be produced by us.

You sound remarkably cheerful about all this.

Look, every one of us would like to be king. We all would love to have everything for ourselves. But then we would not be participating in a cooperative effort in Europe. Again: If Ariane 6 was mine, I would want it all here! But that would not work because then you would not have sufficient financial resources for development.

Our system is very simple: collaboration and competitiveness. There’s no way we can be successful if we don’t apply the two. At this juncture, Germany will contribute significant resources for development and contribute resources to achieve more competitiveness. If these two things work together, I will be happy. If they don’t, then we will analyze the situation.

Is Vega-C is still on schedule for a 2019 flight?

Yes, mid-2019 for the first flight.

Could Vega-C lift a second-generation Cosmo-SkyMed radar Earth observation satellite being built for the Italian government?

A: Vega-C will be fit for either of the two satellites being built. But we need to see when the first of them is actually ready for flight. And then we will see whether it will fly with Vega-C or with Soyuz or something else.

Like SpaceX?

Or SpaceX. But that would surprise me. The customer will analyze the tradeoffs between reliability and price and the European nature of the deal. I would happily advertise for the choice of Vega-C — no doubt about it. My role in marketing is within Arianespace and believe me, they are very vocal in advertising our products.

But on purely technical terms, you have done the engineering and Vega-C can lift a second-generation Cosmo-SkyMed?

Correct, and we definitely want to fly Cosmo-SkyMed. I will be very vocal with my Italian customer to make that happen. I will promote, with Arianespace, the idea that we will do the impossible to make it happen.

There have been tweets about SpaceX from Italy after a visit to SpaceX by ASI, the italian Space Agency.

Yes, but they come more often to visit me than to SpaceX in California. And a tweet is not a contract. Cosmo-SkyMed is a cooperation between ASI and the Italian Ministry of Defense. The decision probably won’t be based on tweets.

PARIS — Satellite and rocket hardware builder OHB of Germany on Nov. 16 said delays in its supply chain had put pressure on its revenue in recent months but that the company’s full-year profitability would be unaffected.

Bremen-based OHB said that after several years of hesitation on the part of its German government customer, the company expects to receive the full development contract for Germany’s Heinrich Hertz telecommunications demonstration satellite by next spring.

Heinrich Hertz will use OHB’s SmallGeo satellite platform to test numerous telecommunications technologies for civil and military applications.

Heinrich Hertz satellite development contract early 2017

In a conference call with investors, OHB said it expected the Heinrich Hertz contract to be valued at around 300 million euros ($330 million). The company has already won a small contract to oversee development of the satellite’s diverse payload instruments.

The recent signing of a contract for full development of Europe’s future Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus Safran Launchers is expected to yield a 300-million-euro contract to MT Aerospace of Augsburg, Germany, which is 70 percent owned by OHB.

MT Aerospace has already been awarded a 23-million-euro contract with the French space agency, CNES, to provide Ariane 6 launch pad components. CNES is managing the Ariane 6 launch installation under a separate contract with ESA.

The recent agreement between Italy and Germany to divide production of the Ariane 6 solid-fueled strap-on boosters, which also serve as the first stage of the Italian-led Vega small satellite launcher, will mean more work for MT Aerospace and more revenue from OHB. The subject was not brought up during the conference call, however.

OHB and Galileo: 14 down (assuming Nov. 17 launch), eight to go

OHB’s biggest ongoing contract is for the provision of 22 Galileo positioning, navigation and timing contracts to the European Commission, which is the executive arm of the 28-nation European Union.

After early delivery delays, Galileo satellite production at OHB is now on schedule.

Four OHB-built Galileo satellites are scheduled for launch Nov. 17 aboard a European Ariane 5 rocket. Once these are in operation, OHB will have eight more spacecraft to deliver under its contract. Five of these have already been sent to ESA’s Estec test facility in Noordwijk, Netherlands, and three others are in OHB’s final integration facility.

OHB is one of several companies bidding to win a third batch of Galileo spacecraft. Bids were submitted in July. ESA and the European Commission are expected to make a selection in the coming months.

OHB is prime contractor for the second generation of German radar reconnaissance satellites, called SARah, and has encountered no delays there, the company said.

Multiple issues at Dec. 1-2 ESA ministerial conference

OHB is awaiting several decisions by ESA governments expected during a Dec. 1-2 conference of European government ministers in Lucerne, Switzerland.

OHB Chief Executive Marco R. Fuchs said during the conference call that the company’s focus for the ESA conference will be on the Earth observation, science and telecommunications missions that ESA will decide, and well as on the final budget needed for Europe’s ExoMars mission to Mars.

The first ExoMars launch in 2016 culminated in the correct orbit insertion of the Trace Gas Orbiter but the loss of a lander following an apparent computer glitch that caused it to jettison its parachute and stop firing its braking motors too early.

OHB is the prime industrial contract for ESA’s Asteroid Impact Mission, which ESA governments will review at the Lucerne meeting. That mission is operating under severe time constraints: To catch the asteroid and its moon as they make their closest approach to Earth, the mission needs to be launched in October 2020.

For the nine months ending Sept. 30, OHB reported revenue of 507.1 million euros, down 5 percent from the same period a year ago. But its pretax earnings margin was up, to 5.6 percent of revenue compared to 5.3 percent a year ago.

OHB Chief Financial Officer Kurt Melching said the company’s goal of 750 million euros in revenue for 2016 is not guaranteed, especially if there are further delays from its suppliers. But the profitability forecast, of 47 million euros in profit before tax and interest, is well within reach and is the more important metric of the company’s performance.

OHB’s work load remains high as it progresses on several different satellite programs. The company’s growth has continued in 2016. Employment totaled 2,275 as of Sept. 30, compared to 2,056 as of Dec. 31.

Paris, France (SPX) Nov 11, 2016
The European Space Agency and Airbus Safran Launchers, industrial prime contractor of the Ariane 6 launcher, have signed the amendment to the agreement of 12 August 2015 committing the entire 2.4 billion euro planned for the development, production and operation of the two versions of the Ariane 6 launcher, Ariane 62 and 64.
The agreement of 12 August 2015 included a firm commitment of app Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Европейское космическое агентство, Серия РН Ариан, Safran, Airbus Safran Launchers

PARIS — The European Space Agency’s ruling council on Nov. 3 gave what should be the final endorsement needed to free up development funds for the next-generation Ariane 6 launch after a compromise on work shares between Italy and Germany.

The decision, which makes certain that both Germany and Italy will have production lines for the Ariane 6 solid-fueled strap-on booster segments — which also serve as the first stage of Europe’s Vega C rocket in development — was unanimously adopted by the 12 nations participating in the Ariane 6 program.

With this decision, there should be nothing standing in the way of approval by ESA’s Industrial Policy Committee, the last step before Airbus Safran Launchers, the company managing Ariane 6, receives a check from ESA for about 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion). That decision is expected on Nov. 8.

“I am very happy about this decision, which required a double two-thirds majority of the participating states,” said Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s director of launchers. “You can imagine there was a long discussion over the P120C motor casing work.”

Booster casing issue with Italy and Germany

The P120C is the segment to be used as the Ariane 6 strap-on boosters and as the Vega C rocket’s first stage.

As majority shareholder in the Vega program, Italy had been given the P120C production award, which is now handled by Avio SpA of Colleferro, Italy.

But Germany had said in 2014, when ESA governments gave their initial go-ahead for Ariane 6, that MT Aerospace of Augsburg, Germany — majority-owned by OHB SE of Bremen, Germany — was working on a better composite production technology for the casing.

ESA governments had agreed to consider a second P120 production line pending validation of the German claims.

Since then, Germany has pressured ESA governments to accept the second production line even without confirmation that the technology would deliver on its cost-saving promise.

Germany is the second-largest contributor to the Ariane 6 program, after France, but does not have a major share in the Vega program. It was therefore up to ESA to stitch together an agreement taking account of Germany’s rights in Ariane 6, and Italy’s rights in Vega, which are both tied to the P120C program.

In a Nov. 4 interview, Neuenschwander said the Nov. 3 agreement was reached on the assumption that the production cost savings of the German technology will compensate for the increased costs of opening a second production facility.

Neuenschwander agreed that “there is an element of redundancy” in setting up a second facility, but that this is not necessarily a bad thing. If the promised savings from the German production technology do not materialize, he said, “We will reassess this in 2018.”

Final go-head on development funds set for Nov. 8

Neuenschwander said the Industrial Policy Committee decision on Nov. 8 is all but a foregone conclusion given the unanimity of the ESA council on Nov. 3.

In addition to the Ariane 6 development program and the P120C agreement, ESA’s council approved the full development of the Ariane 6 launched installation at Europe’s Guiana Space Center in French Guiana, on South America’s northeast coast.

It is not European industry, but the French space agency, CNES, that is prime contractor for the Ariane 6 launch base. Construction has begun and CNES officials have said they will be on time for an inaugural launch of Ariane 6 in 2020.

As was the case with Airbus Safran Launchers, CNES was given only a first tranche of 178 million euros of its promised funding, with the remaining 422 million euros to be withheld until matters of geographic return on the entire Ariane 6 program were settled.

Neuenschwander said it should be only a matter of days after the Nov. 8 meeting until both CNES and Airbus Safran Launchers are paid the final tranches on their contracts.

Tough policy issues await in 2018

Not all issues surrounding Ariane 6 have been resolved, although the program will now enter full-scale production.

For example, the future role of ESA and European governments in maintaining Europe’s spaceport and the Ariane 6 rocket has yet to be determined. Ariane 6 represents a departure from past European practice in that industry, led by Airbus Safran Launchers, has been given full responsibility for development.

In late2017, ESA will conduct an Exploitation Readiness Key Point, which whose conclusions will be presented to ESA’s council in March 2018. It is here that the future Ariane 6 role of ESA — and perhaps the European Commission as well — will be settled.

Among the issues: Who is financially responsible for the costs associated with a launch failure? What is the exact role of governments in the event the euro rises strongly against the U.S. dollar, compromising Ariane 6’s competitiveness? Will ESA agree to return to the current practice of topping off launch-service provider Arianespace’s annual revenue to assure it does not report a loss?

[Via Satellite 10-06-2016] Arianespace completed the 74th consecutive successful mission of the Ariane 5 launch vehicle Oct. 5, tying the record of its predecessor, the Ariane 4, with a mission for customers in India and Australia. The dual launch delivered Australian national satellite operator NBN’s Sky Muster 2 into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) 28 minutes after liftoff, followed by GSAT 18 four minutes later for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

Sky Muster 2 is the second of two NBN satellites both built by Space Systems Loral (SSL) and launched by Arianespace, with the first, Sky Muster 1, orbited in 2015 on an Ariane 5. The satellite helps NBN bridge the digital divide in Australia by reaching rural and isolated regions of the continent, as well as the Norfolk, Christmas, Macquarie and Cocos Islands. It carries high throughput Ka-band transponders and will operate from an orbital position of 135 to 150 degrees east.

ISRO’s GSAT 18 is the 20th satellite Arianespace has launched for the Indian space agency. Equipped with 12 transponders in Ku-band and another 24 in C-band, the satellite is to provide telecommunications services for India once in its final orbital position at 74 degrees east, strengthening ISRO’s current fleet of 14 operational satellites.

This launch was also an opportunity for Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL), prime contractor for the Ariane 5 to conduct research for Europe’s next generation Ariane 6 launch vehicle. Following completion of the commercial mission, the company performed the third in a series of experiments to observe the movement of the residual propellants. ASL used several sensors and a camera installed in one of the upper stage tanks to gain a clearer understanding of fuel behavior during the long ballistic phases necessary for the new Ariane 6 missions. The European Space Agency (ESA), which financed this work, will join ASL in analyzing the findings.

The Ariane 6 launcher’s first flight is scheduled for 2020, following which there will be an overlap of Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 missions until the latter fuller replaces the former in about 2023.

[Via Satellite 07-01-2016] Airbus Group and Safran have completed the formation of Airbus Safran Launchers — the 50/50 Joint Venture (JV) that combines Airbus Defence and Space’s launcher experience with Safran’s capability in liquid and solid rocket propulsion. Safran has agreed to make an economic equalization of approximately $836 million (€750 million) in order to obtain a 50 percent stake in the company.

Airbus Safran Launchers is now a fully-fledged operational company with roughly 8,400 employees in France and Germany. The JV, already managing launcher program activities and associated equity stakes, is the head company in a group comprising 11 subsidiaries and affiliates: APP, Arianespace, Cilas, Eurockot, Eurocryospace, Europropulsion, Nucletudes, Pyroalliance, Regulus, Sodern and Starsem.

“With the closing of this agreement, Airbus Safran Launchers becomes fully operational and will focus all its efforts on delivering more competitive solutions to its customers. Top of the list is the next generation Ariane 6 launcher, which is due to have its maiden flight as early as 2020,” said Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus Group.

[Via Satellite 06-16-2016] Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL), prime contractor for the future Ariane 6 launch vehicle, is confident that the rocket the company is developing will cut costs by as much as 50 percent the current price tag of the Ariane 5. The company recently completed the launcher’s first design review, presenting its conclusions to the European Space Agency (ESA) on June 10. Having past this milestone, the Ariane 6 is on track for a maiden flight roughly four years from now in 2020.

Alain Charmeau, CEO of ASL, told Via Satellite that the approach to creating the Ariane 6 will be different from the Ariane 5 for multiple reasons.

First, he said when the Ariane 5 was produced there were not strong requirements to design a very cost-competitive rocket. Since then the launch market has become noticeably more competitive, spurred on chiefly by the success of SpaceX. Other launch providers are also seeking larger portions of the relatively small commercial launch market. Russia’s Khrunichev is producing the Angara series of modularly constructed rockets that International Launch Services (ILS) is beginning to market, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is designing the H3 with the ability to do around 10 launches a year, and United Launch Alliance is creating the Vulcan launcher to support both government and commercial missions.

It is against this backdrop that ASL is overhauling Europe’s flagship launch vehicle. The Ariane 6 will come in two versions — the 62 and the 64 — using two and four strap on boosters respectively to meet the performance needs of corresponding missions.

“We are looking for the same level of performance as we get today on the Ariane 5, but to reduce by 40 to 50 percent the recurring costs of the launcher. As a matter of fact, the performance of Ariane 64 will be slightly above Ariane 5 today, and for a price that will be between 40 and 50 percent cheaper than the price of Ariane 5,” said Charmeau.

Second, Europe is reconfiguring its approach to rocket design. When the ESA ministerial meeting committed to the Ariane 6 in 2014, it did so with the intent of giving industry much greater control over the design process. Charmeau said ASL set up a team of ESA employees inside the company to make sure that it and the customer understand each other while industry takes a more authoritative role in Europe’s launcher development.

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“We created a new extended enterprise including integrating with our customer ESA. That’s a new way of working in order to speed up the development compared to other European space programs,” explained Charmeau.

ESA is now letting industry, with ASL at the helm, guide the Ariane 6 development. Charmeau said the company anticipates owning 74 percent of Arianespace in the coming weeks through the purchase of shares from the French space agency CNES. A big piece of ASL’s plan to reduce cost is by streamlining the industrial organization for Ariane 6. The company started by leveraging synergies between Airbus and Safran, and intends to take this approach further with other parts of the Ariane 6 program.

“With this reorganization we have tried to specialize some of our partners in terms of technologies,” said Charmeau. “For example, all the main metallic structures of Ariane 6 will be done in the same place in Augsburg in Germany, whereas today with the Ariane 5 these big metallic parts are done in four or five places in Europe. This kind of new organization will mean that we will do more work in the same workshop than today, which has a direct impact on the cost.”

Third, there are new technologies available that ASL and its partners are leveraging to reduce manufacturing costs.

“We will intensively use new production processes such as 3-D printing, and also other processes which are now demonstrated as being much more efficient than the processes we use on Ariane 5,” Charmeau added.

One approach Charmeau said ASL has actively considered but decided not to take with the Ariane 6 is reusability. He said the company has a concept developed for reusability, but that it is not convinced the commercial market will support rocket reuse for the European launch sector.

“There is a U.S. captive market which will provide 15, 20, maybe 25 launches for U.S. competitors, whereas in our case we are striving for five [commercial] launches per year. And in a market with five per year, we are not convinced that reusability is the right answer,” he said.

The current Ariane 6 design uses solid propulsion boosters, which Charmeau said are by definition not reusable. He said while ASL has no immediate plans for reusability, in the future the company could push beyond the realm of expendable rockets.

“This does not mean that we aren’t thinking that with reusability the market would grow significantly in Europe or worldwide, and this is why we are investing in order to think about future concepts of reusability. We are also starting to work on a new engine that would allow us to very significantly reduce the cost with liquid propulsion. This is how we see the future beyond Ariane 6,” he said.

ASL has no immediate reusability plans but it is thinking beyond the realm of expendable rocketsClick To Tweet

Passing the first design phase for the Ariane 6 showed that the launcher program is on track in terms of schedule, performance and cost. Charmeau said the review also included the P120 engine that will power the Vega C. Though Italy-based ELV is the prime contractor for Vega C, the solid propulsion motors will also serve as the strap-on boosters for the Ariane 6. ASL now intends to progress with the design of the launcher going down to the lowest level of detail before the end of the year.

Though rocketry is no easy feat, Charmeau stays even-keeled by focusing on a singular goal that he describes as making the whole program very manageable.

“It’s extremely simple,” he said. “We need to have performances for a given cost.”

Charmeau said ASL’s two big goals for the remainder of this year are to begin the procurement of long lead items for the first Ariane 6 prototypes and production units, and to progress with the new Vinci upper stage engine. The Vinci engine will enable new capabilities such as re-ignition in space. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is constructing new infrastructure for the engine at Lampoldshausen, where a hot-fire testing campaign began in May.

- Ariane 5 launcher breaks its own record by propelling almost 11 tonnes out of the Earth’s gravitational field
- Two new telecommunications satellites en route to geostationary orbit 36,000 km above the Earth

Ariane 5 launched two telecommunication satellites weighing a total of 10.730 tonnes into space from the European spaceport in Kourou, a new record for the European launcher specialised in heavy payloads. The previous record of 10.5 tonnes, dates back to February 2013.

“Yet again, Ariane 5 has demonstrated itself as a leader on the world market, which doesn’t just happen by chance,” said François Auque, Head of Space Systems. “This new record is just one of the many results of the Airbus Defence and Space and Airbus Safran Launchers teams’ determination to continually improve the performance and competitiveness of the European launcher.”

The two satellites were precisely placed in a ‘transfer’ orbit, from which they reach their geostationary orbit using their on-board propulsion systems. In this orbit, 36,000 km above the Earth, the satellites move at a speed with which they can follow the planet’s rotation exactly. This enables them to constantly ‘watch’ the same point on the Earth and cover an area that corresponds to a third of the planet. The applications of the geostationary orbit include broadcasting television signals, transmitting telephone or internet data and meteorology.

Airbus Defence and Space, a 50% shareholder in Airbus Safran Launchers, is the main industrial partner of the Ariane 5 programme. Drawing on the expertise the company has acquired and the investments it has made for more than 10 years, Ariane 5 has become the most reliable commercial launcher on the global market and has increased its geostationary orbit payload capacity by almost two tonnes. Representing cutting-edge European expertise, the Ariane 5 launcher has been specially designed to inject heavy payloads into orbit.

About Airbus Defence and Space

Airbus Defence and Space, a division of Airbus Group, is Europe’s number one defence and space enterprise and the second largest space business worldwide. Its activities include space, military aircraft and related systems and services. It employs more than 38,000 people and in 2015 generated revenues of over 13 billion Euros.

Paris, France (SPX) Jun 15, 2016
Airbus Safran Launchers has just finalised the first design phase for Ariane 6, successfully confirming the maturity of the future European launcher, for which the maiden flight is scheduled for 2020. This first design review, called "Maturity Gate 5", enables Airbus Safran Launchers to confirm performance, schedule and operating costs.
This successful design review is a major milestone in Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Серия РН Ариан, Safran, Airbus Safran Launchers

An initial Red Dragon mission in 2018, where a version of the company’s Dragon spacecraft would land on Mars, would be followed by two more in 2020.

SpaceX would then fly a spacecraft known as the Mars Colonial Transporter in 2022, which would eventually be used to send humans to Mars.

Musk said that SpaceX would have to “get lucky” in order to start flying humans to Mars in 2024, as he said earlier this month.

“This is going to be mind blowing,” he said. [Washington Post]

More News

A Delta 4 Heavy launched a National Reconnaissance Office payload Saturday. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 1:51 p.m. Eastern Saturday on a mission designated NROL-37. Late Saturday, ULA and others declared the launch a success. No official details about the payload, named USA 268, have been released, although outside observers believe it is a signals intelligence satellite. The launch had been scheduled for Thursday but was postponed by weather. [SpaceNews]

China launched a Beidou navigation satellite Sunday. A Long March 3C rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Sunday and placed the Beidou G7 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. China has now launched 23 Beidou satellites as it works to expand its satellite navigation system from its current regional coverage to full global coverage by 2020. [gbtimes]

NASA and JAXA are starting discussions about how to recover the science lost when the Hitomi spacecraft failed. The x-ray astronomy spacecraft, build by Japan and carrying a NASA instrument, launched in February, but failed in March because of a series of technical problems, including human error, that caused the spacecraft to spin up uncontrollably. A JAXA executive said Friday he is beginning a dialogue with NASA counterparts on next steps, but acknowledged there were no plans to fly a replacement spacecraft for the foreseeable future, given a number of other missions JAXA already has scheduled to fly through the late 2020s. A NASA official described the discussions as “positive” but said it was premature to say how they might respond to Hitomi’s failure. [SpaceNews]

Some satellite observers are concerned China’s Tiangong-1 module could make an uncontrolled reentry. The experimental lab module, launched in 2011 and visited by Chinese crews in 2012 and 2013, has apparently reached the end of its life and its orbit is decaying, although Chinese officials have not confirmed the module’s mission is over. The lack of comment from China have led some to suggest that China no longer has control over the module, which would result in a uncontrolled reentry, but others note that the module does not appear to be tumbling, and that China may be waiting until the spacecraft’s orbit decays enough to perform a controlled reentry maneuver. [SPACE.com]

More than a third of humanity can no longer see the Milky Way at night. A new atlas of scattered artificial light compiled by astronomers finds that more than 80 percent of the world’s population suffers from some degree of light pollution, including 99 percent of the population of the U.S. and Western Europe. The light pollution washes out the Milky Way and dimmer stars, which some argue severs a connection to the night sky that had lasted for millennia. “It is the first time in human history that we have lost the direct contact with the night sky,” said one researcher involved in the study. [New York Times]

[Via Satellite 06-13-2016] Airbus Safran Launchers has finalized the first design phase for Ariane 6, Europe’s next generation launch system. The successful review enables the company to validate all of the Ariane 6 technical, industrial and programming characteristics.

Airbus Safran Launchers presented its conclusions regarding the Ariane 6 to the European Space Agency (ESA) on June 10. Following this step, Airbus Safran Launchers and all its European industrial partners are now continuing with launcher development at the planned rate.

The first design review, called “Maturity Gate 5,” began on April 28, less than nine months after the signing of the development contract with ESA on August 12, 2015. The review enables Airbus Safran Launchers to confirm performance, schedule and operating costs.

“This success confirms all our undertakings to the European Space Agency and its member states, and means that we can make a firm budget commitment to the development and production of Ariane 6, for which the maiden flight is confirmed for 2020,” said Alain Charmeau, CEO of Airbus Safran Launchers.

As both a satellite prime contractor and a major component supplier for Europe’s Ariane and Vega rockets, OHB SE of Germany is in the thick of the discussion on Europe’s future space policy – to be set this year by the European Commission – and the evolution of the Arianespace launch consortium.

What is more, OHB Chief Executive Marco R. Fuchs is president of the Eurospace grouping of space companies.

Arianespace is preparing to enter a new era as a company owned by Airbus Safran Launchers. In addition to the European Commission’s space policy, expected by December, the 22-nation European Space Agency has scheduled a December meeting of its ministers to set a mid-term policy and budget direction.

Fuchs spoke with Space News staff writer Peter B. de Selding.

The EU Commission is scheduled to produce a space policy late this year. Has the EU been consulting Eurospace members?

My 3-year term as Eurospace President ends on July 1, but I can say that up to now, there has been an active consultation with Eurospace, which represents the European space manufacturing industry and is therefore a major stakeholder. We will soon formalize soon contribution, which is very much expected by the Commission.

Is Eurospace proposing any fundamental difference between ESA and the Commission?

No, and I don’t think it should change. ESA has a lot of technical capability and the commission does not want or plan to duplicate that. But the commission, especially with satellite navigation and Earth observation, represents much of the user community.

ESA-Commission relations are getting easier now that things are moving along with Galileo and Copernicus. The debates are not as complex as they were a few years ago. It is programmatically clear how Galileo will be completed. Copernicus, as we saw with the recent launch, appears to be in a good position. And the Commission’s space budget seems stable.

Is Eurospace submitting detailed program advice – for example, on whether EU funds should be used to support the Guiana Space Center spaceport?

We are not going into these kinds of details. They don’t need our advice on that.

Eurospace has been critical of the commission’s Horizon 2020 research program for distributing limited financial resources over too many projects. Is that still a problem?

We now have program clusters in Horizon 2020, which will give some focus. For example, there is a cluster for electric propulsion. It’s always a debate between conflicting interests: The larger companies want larger programs and in orbit demonstrations. The smaller companies want a greater number of programs. We need to find a balance.

Horizon 2020 is evolving. I think they are listening to industry ideas. It’s not so easy for the commission to say: Let’s do in-orbit demonstrations. That would create overlap with ESA. I understand the commission’s point. I also understand industry’s point: We are lobbying the commission in a similar way we lobby ESA. But it’s not the same animal.

The European Space Agency’s 22 governments meet in December to set mid-term policy goals. With the launcher issues already settled, do you expect any major new program initiatives?

ESA briefed industry in mid-May and gave us an overview of what they want to propose to member states.

There are no major new programs. It is about continuity, evolution and finishing things up. The fact that Ariane 6 milestones are scheduled for September and well under way means there is no big drama.

The debate will be around exploration and crewed spaceflight. We appreciate the efforts made by ESA’s director-general to initiate innovative concepts, even within the constrained budgetary environment. This should of course be further confirmed by operational projects in the future.

So I don’t expect major surprises at the conference, which is the right thing to do at this stage. We are now having conferences every two years. This didn’t used to be the case.

The political leaders of three German states – Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria and Bremen — wrote the chancellor urging support for space policy. They did this for the last ESA ministerial as well. Do any other governments in Europe this?

I am not aware of any. In Germany, industrial policy is done strongly at the Länder level, not only for space but for other sectors as well. The tradition is that state governments do industrial policy, so it’s not unusual to see state governments pushing policies to the federal government. The German level of participation to Ariane 6 was decided mainly because Bavaria pushed for it.

Wouldn’t this be useful in Italy, the U.K. and maybe Spain?

It’s possible, but the Länder are really powerful within the German Federal government and they are also powerful in the political parties. The German political system is based on the legislative competence of the Länder and we have in addition to the Bundestag quasi a governors’ council as the second chamber of Congress, the Bundesrat. Chancellor Merkel will take this letter seriously.

The letter highlights the importance of space, with telecom, Earth observation, and human spaceflight. It is basically political support for the government to say, space is important. It helps Economics Minister Gabriel to negotiate with Finance Minister Schäuble.

OHB is developing the SmallGEO line of geostationary orbiting telecommunications satellites. The first will be launched for Hispasat of Spain. Are you marketing it already?

The first satellite for Hispasat is still completing testing so we are carefully marketing it. We want to show that the first one works.

When is the launch?

The satellite should be ready for a launch before the end of the year. We have just completed the thermal-vacuum tests and will proceed with antenna testing in a compact antenna test range.

Europe’s Vega small-satellite launcher has a perfect record over its first six launches. But the cost remains an issue. How is Vega doing from where you sit?

We are optimistic about Vega. Launchers are all about cadence: If you do two per year, it is very hard. If you do 10 per year, that would be fantastic.

We are still in the early stage, when institutional launches are very important and where everybody tries to get the price down. We are in charge of two satellites to be launched by Vega: OptSat [Israeli-built high-resolution optical Earth observation satellite for the Italian Defense Ministry], and the Italian Prisma hyperspectral observation satellite.

Germany’s minister responsible for space, Brigitte Zypries, recently said Germany would build a second Vega first stage/Ariane 6 strap-on booster production line at your MT Aerospace facility in Augsburg. Isn’t this only if MT demonstrates a 20-30 percent cost savings with new technology?

It’s both. Germany has pledged 23 percent of the ESA budget for Vega and will finance, on its own, the second production line. This decision demonstrates the government’s confidence that the new technology will generate the expected cost savings. MT Aerospace is developing the so-called infusion-based production method in cooperation with the Center for Lightweight Production Technology (ZLP), a national research center that is part of the German Aerospace Center, DLR. We believe this new technology is cheaper and more efficient than today’s used carbon fiber processes.

The heavy-lift Ariane 6, to debut in 2020, is tied to Vega by the Ariane 6 strap-on boosters, which are the same as Vega’s first stage. Is it on schedule?

Yes, it seems that it is going very well. The design work is progressing in a very collaborative way between the prime contractor, Airbus Safran Launchers, and the main subcontractors, including us. The ESA Program Implementation Review should be completed in September.

Is there a concern at OHB, as at Avio, about the future landscape dominated by Airbus Safran Launchers, which will become a 74 percent owner of Europe’s Arianespace launch provider?

With ASL about to buy the shares held by the French space agency, CNES, Arianespace’s structure and independence have changed. We always felt comfortable with CNES as a shareholder, because it made Arianespace a public-private partnership. That meant obligations on the public side, even beyond CNES and France. This has been, in my view, a good connection. Just think about what happens if a major problem occurs, such as launch failures or a dramatic change in foreign exchange.

Obviously things have been decided differently and life changes. But we, as a shareholder, do have an interest in minority shareholder protections, such as super-majority requirements in certain cases.

As a minority shareholder you cannot have a strong influence on day-to-day business. But the small shareholders do represent the supplier industry and the second product – Vega – through Avio. They are also the industrial representation from other participating and financing nations. There needs to be a balanced package for minority rights within the new shareholder structure, which is what we are discussing with ASL. This needs to be concluded soon.

We are not naïve about the balance of power. But to keep Arianespace as a separate legal entity, it should also have a purpose and identity of its own.

Is the debate over the price of Arianespace shares?

No, we are not at all in pricing discussions. OHB does not intend to sell its shares or buy shares. We want to understand what we have. What does it mean to have 8.3 percent of a company that is now majority owned by ASL at 74 percent, and Airbus with another nearly 4 percent?

So we are basically shareholders of a company in which ASL and Airbus own 78 percent.

Arianespace was created as a joint venture of suppliers. What is now 78 percent ASL and Airbus used to be a more diverse shareholder group, with a large number of individual companies which, because of mergers, are now all in one pocket.

For the other companies the question is: What does it mean to be shareholders of the remaining 22 percent? Are we shareholders or is this more like a supplier council?

We need to talk about what our shares mean. Is the company about making money? Is it about protecting supplier interests? About keeping governments active in the business?

The question for us is: What are the rights and obligations attached to the shareholding? It cannot be the same as it was before, with a company now with a clear majority that can consolidate and totally control Arianespace. They cannot simply buy the majority stake, which they have, and then say nothing has changed for us.

Might you want to purchase shares to get beyond your current 8.3 percent?

I don´t know if that would be a good investment or not. We want to keep our shares. Airbus would have to make squeeze-out and a mandatory buyout offer if Arianespace was a listed public company. There would be no debate about this.

It is not a public listed company, but the underlying reasoning here — that if you buy stock beyond a certain threshold you are obliged to make an offer to the remaining minority – is something that ought to be discussed.

Is it odd that Avio, Vega’s prime contractor, has just a 3.4 percent of Arianespace?

What is the difference between 3 percent and 13 percent and 23 percent? I have no idea. If the governance says that with 51 percent you do what you want, then there is no difference.

Having Avio at 3.4 percent looks small. But I expect Avio would not put in money into a company to get to 13.8 or 23.8 without understanding what these additional shares would buy them in terms of power and return.

We need a catalogue that says that at least some issues need to be decided by a super majority.

What’s your position on future Galileo navigation satellite orders? ESA’s ITT went out in May and the new batch should be decided by the end of the year.

We are working on a proposal. The proposals are due July 19. We are working on a competitive proposal, as are others. I expect proposals from Thales Alenia Space and from Airbus in addition to ours.

SINGAPORE – France’s space minister on June 1 urged a redoubled European effort in space research, and specifically in next-generation rockets, in the face of what he said were increased investments by the United States and other major space powers.

Visiting the French and European space agencies’ merged launcher directorate in Paris, Mandon rejected the idea that SpaceX of the United States already had too far an advance in its rocket-reusability program to be matched by Europe.

Asked if Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX’s recent multiple successes in landing its Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage constituted a decisive step forward in the race to the future, Mandon said:

“They have achieved multiple successes in recovery, which is only the beginning of the process. Now they’ve got the stages back – very good. The next challenge is: How do you use them again? I don’t know if we’re too late, or behind, but I do know we need to move forward and Promethee – Prometheus – is a good way to go about this.”

What sometimes passes for French arrogance in translation is often an attempt by French officials to dispel fears – often expressed in the press here — that they are falling behind and that the game, in effect, is over.

This pervasive angst – not limited to Germany — after every SpaceX acrobatic display remains despite the examples in rocket history when today’s losers – Europe in the 1970s compared to the United States debuting the space shuttle – end up as winners as the shuttle was withdrawn from the commercial market that Europe’s Ariane came to dominate.

Mandon was referring to a reusable, liquid-oxygen, liquid-methane engine that France has been working on, called Promethee. France would like to Europeanize the effort, offering to subcontract major elements to Germany and other European partners in exchange for financial contributions.

Mandon’s calling the propulsion system both Promethee, French for Prometheus, and Prometheus presages a French effort this December to persuade European Space Agency governments to fund the new propulsion system.

Jean-Marc Astorg, director of launchers at the French space agency, CNES, said during the Mandon briefing that 5-7 Prometheus engines could power the first stage of a future Ariane rocket, each costing 1 million euros ($1.13 million) apiece, compared to the 10-million-euro cost of the single Vulcain cryogenic engine that now powers the Ariane 5 first stage along with two solid-fueled strap-on boosters.

Vulcain is powered by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

The Ariane 6 rocket – designed to be one-half the cost of Ariane 5 – is on track to a 2020 launch. It will use a single Vulcain as well, with two or four solid-fueled boosters depending on mission requirements. Ariane 6’s second stage is powered by the Vinci engine, which is also fueled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

Astorg has said in the past that one of the things he most admires about the SpaceX Falcon 9 is its design simplicity and specifically its use of a single motor design for the first stage, which uses nine of them, and the second stage, which uses one. That feature alone helps SpaceX reduce costs.

Astorg said France is seeking support in Germany and other European governments for a three-year R&D effort, budgeted at 125 million euros, which would culminate in a prototype engine ready to test in 2019.

Given worries in Europe that Ariane 6 may already be yesterday’s story in the global market, Astorg stressed – as did Mandon and CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall during the briefing – that Prometheus is an R&D program in parallel to, and not in competition with, Ariane 6 and the companion Vega C enhanced small-satellite vehicle.

Astorg said additive manufacturing and other technology-design improvements could cut in half, to five years, rocket propulsion development work that a decade ago would have taken 10 years.

Astorg said CNES and other Prometheus program officials would need to spend considerable time studying how the way liquid methane works in a propulsion system.

David Quancard, director of operations at Airbus Safran Launchers, the prime contractor for Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 and the likely leader of a next-generation rocket effort, said 50 percent of the cost of a rocket propulsion system lies in its industrial procedures.

Reducing production cycles, which Airbus Safran Launchers is already doing with Ariane 6, would be key to future launchers’ design as well, he said.

PARIS— Negotiations will start by June between the now fully operational Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL) and the European Space Agency on the ASL’s bid to complete construction of the future Ariane 6 rocket, ESA Launcher Director Gaele Winters said.

ASL’s submission of a fixed-price bid for the Ariane 6 is the latest indication that the program has proceeded smoothly from its original government approval in December 2014 despite delays in ASL’s formation and concerns among other European rocket-component builders about how they will fare in an ASL-dominated European launch landscape.

Pending approval by European Commission antitrust authorities in late July, ASL is to become a 74 percent owner of Europe’s Arianespace launch consortium. Avio of Colleferro, Italy, which is prime industrial contractor for Europe’s Vega small-satellite launcher and the manufacturer of Ariane 6’s strap-on boosters, has a 3.38 percent stake in Arianespace.

Avio has been worried that an ASL-dominated Arianespace would favor Ariane 6 over Vega for contracts where both vehicles could make a viable offer – for example, an Earth observation satellite could launch as the sole passenger on a Vega, or as a co-passenger on an Ariane 62 vehicle, the lighter of the two Ariane 6 versions.

Making Avio happy inside an ASL-dominated Arianespace has been complicated by the ongoing attempt by Avio’s owner, private-equity investment group Cinven, to sell Avio’s space business. ASL has said it would make a bid.

At a May 2 briefing in Colleferro, Italy, where Avio produces rocket components, a Cinven member of Avio’s board of directors said Cinven has been receiving offers for Avio for years, even before Cinven’s purchase was concluded in 2006.

“We keep getting expressions of interest in the business,” Roberto Italia said. “Avio was a supplier to the Ariane family. Now, with the evolution toward a two-launcher family encompassing Ariane 6 as well as Vega, Avio has become central to the future of the European space industry.”

Roberto Battiston, president of the Italian Space Agency, who has been vocal in saying Avio should not be sold to a potential competitor like ASL, said Italy has not objected to the fact that a non-Italian company has owned Avio. “What is important is the result, and the commitment to the [Vega] project,” Battiston said.

The situation had become so fraught that ESA Director-General Johann-Dietrich Woerner felt obliged during the May 2 briefing to guarantee to Avio that ESA would prevent any abuse of power by ASL.

“If you kick out one of the elements of the family, you destroy the whole family,” Woerner said, referring to the fact that Vega and Ariane 6 share common elements and manufacturers. “I am quite sure ASL knows this. But I can assure you that ESA will take its responsibility in making sure it is a fair and good deal for Avio.”

Asked whether ESA would favor the creation of a VegaSpace – a commercial company separate from Europe’s Arianespace that would sell only Vega launches – to protect Avio’s interests, Woerner told journalists May 9:

“Of course not. That would be a detriment to the overall program” of making Europe’s launch sector more competitive. “But Arianespace has to make [Avio] a fair deal.”

Airbus and Safran, meanwhile, said they had completed what they called the Stage 2 phase of ASL permitting the full merger of their launcher business, a step that had been delayed for reasons associated with how the French government and French tax authorities would classify the transaction.

Marwan Lahoud, Airbus’s director of strategy, said May 3 that the full company would be stood up by late June. Up to now, only a limited number of Airbus and Safran personnel had been working at ASL.

Lahoud said that, strictly speaking, it was not so much a tax issue that had slowed down finalization of ASL – meaning the treatment of a presumed 800-milion-euro ($905 million) cash payment from Safran to Airbus to bring Safran’s ASL share to 50 percent — as the acknowledgement by French authorities that the merger did not represent the “sale” of assets.

“Neither party is in the process of selling,” Lahoud said. “The idea was to find an agreement with the government signifying that this is a joint venture that both companies view as strategic. No one is disinvesting here. We will get all this concluded by the end of June.”

Ariane 6 design work has not been visibly troubled by the various side issues.

ESA’s Tender Evaluation Board received ASL’s Ariane 6 bid the week of May 3 and expects to invite ASL to discuss whatever points are unclear or unexpected, Winters said.

“We will discuss with industry any unknowns, or things we do not understand or that we consider as not in line with our expectations,” Winters said in an interview. “That will take us to the end of June. Then in July starts the real PIR.”

The PIR, or Program Implementation Review, is the final step ESA governments required before releasing to ASL and its partners the full Ariane 6 financial package. The PIR, which ESA government ministers insisted on when they approved Ariane 6 development in December 2014, is expected to result in a late-July meeting of ESA’s Launcher Program Board.

Absent any glitches, which at this point are considered unlikely, ESA’s ruling council would make a final go-ahead decision at a meeting scheduled for Sept. 13, Winters said.

While slightly delayed when set against its original industrial management schedule, the Ariane 6 program remains on track, once the PIR is through, to conduct an inaugural launch in 2020.

ESA in August 2015 signed contracts for the entire development of Ariane 6 – a 2.4-billion-euro contract with ASL, plus a contract for 600 million euros with the French space agency, CNES, to build the Ariane 6 launch installation at Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana.

The Ariane 6 industrial team has agreed to invest 400 million euros of its own money in Ariane 6 development. Following this contract, ESA released 680 million euros of Ariane 6 funding. The remaining funds await completion of the PIR.

A separate contract valued at 395 million euros was signed with Avio for the development of Vega C, an upgraded version of the current Vega.

To give ASL more margin to meet the Ariane 6 performance targets, ESA, ASL and Avio have agreed to enlarge the Ariane 6 strap-on boosters, a design change that will also mean more performance for Vega.

“Since it’s a common element, if you change something on one side, you change it on the other side,” Winters said. “So Vega will be a bit more powerful, close to 2,000 kilograms [into a polar low Earth orbit]. There is some work to be done on the system level to see how this fits in the overall Vega C program. Now they [ASL] are on safe ground with the performance for all the markets they have to serve. That’s what’s important.”

Winters said the larger booster may force a slight change in the Vega C development contract, and has already forced a delay of several months to the Vega C inaugural flight, now set for 2019.

The Vinci engine is designed for the upper liquid propulsion module of the launcher. Once ignited, the engine burns for up to 1,000 seconds in development testing. This M5R test phase will last until September 2016.

Airbus Safran Launchers is the prime contractor for the Ariane 6 launcher, combining Airbus Defence and Space’s expertise in launchers — particularly in France and Germany — with Safran’s expertise in liquid and solid rocket propulsion. The initial launch of the Ariane 6 rocket is scheduled for 2020.

Amsterdam, Netherlands (SPX) May 05, 2016
Airbus Group SE and Safran have signed an agreement for the second and final phase of their 50/50 joint venture, Airbus Safran Launchers.
Both companies will contribute to the current joint program with industrial assets dealing with civil space launchers and military launchers.
Closing of the deal is expected in the second quarter of 2016 after completion of the remaining corporate Перейти к новостиКлючевые слова:Airbus Group, Safran, Airbus Safran Launchers

61

Safran and Airbus Group Sign Second Agreement for Launcher Joint Venture

[Via Satellite 05-02-2016] Airbus Group and Safran have signed an agreement for the second and final phase of their 50/50 Joint Venture (JV): Airbus Safran Launchers. Under the first phase of the JV, Airbus Group and Safran created a joint program company with their respective civil program contracts and major participations related to civil launcher activities. In this second and final phase, industrial assets and military launchers will be integrated in the JV.

Airbus Safran Launchers is guiding the development of Europe’s next generation launch vehicles, the Ariane 6 and Vega C. Airbus and Safran anticipate the deal will close in the second quarter of 2016 following completion of the remaining corporate and other formalities. The companies plan to release financial details of the transaction at the deal’s closing.

PARIS—Rocket engine builder Safran on April 26 said its Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL) joint venture to be “fully operational on the 1st of July” following a resolution of “technical and administrative formalities.”

In a conference call with analysts to announce Paris-based Safran’s quarterly earnings, Safran Chief Executive Philippe Petitcolin said the inquiry by the European Commission into ASL’s takeover of the Arianespace launch consortium was moving forward on a parallel track to the development of ASL.

“I remind you it is not an investigation, it is an inquiry,” Petitcolin said. “We answered a first set of questions, and we had a second set. We are fully responsive and cooperative. They wanted to get more information, or maybe to better understand the answers we gave.”

The European Commission, which is the executive arm of the 28-nation European Union, is probing whether ASL’s purchase of the Arianespace shares now held by the French space agency, CNES, would undermine competition by allowing ASL to ride roughshod over Arianespace’s smaller shareholders.

Those smaller shareholders are, like ASL, mainly Ariane rocket contractors whose work, in some cases, overlaps what ASL can do in-house.

The commission is also examining the “Chinese Wall” protections that ASL has set up to separate its role in Arianespace from its role as a major builder of commercial telecommunications satellites. Other satellite builders want assurances that Airbus satellites will not be given favored treatment by an ASL-dominated Arianespace.

ASL has asked the commission for 10 additional days to answer all the commission questions, meaning the inquiry will now last until July 27 at the latest.

The full creation of the 8,000-strong ASL work force has been slowed by negotiations between Airbus and French tax authorities over Safran’s cash payment to Airbus of 800 million euros ($900 million). The two companies had agreed, following a valuation of ASL’s business as prime contractor for the current Ariane 5 and future Ariane 6 heavy-lift rockets, that this payment would give Safran a 50 percent share of ASL, which is what Safran had wanted.

Airbus has been looking for ways, in concert with French tax authorities, to reduce the tax bill it will owe on receipt of the Safran money.

Safran officials did not reaffirm the 800-million-euro figure during the April 26 call, nor were they asked about it.

The payment will coincide with Airbus and Safran’s merging their rocket-production teams. Only some 450 people now work at ASL, whose primary focus is preparing a formal Ariane 6 contract proposal to the 22-nation European Space Agency, whose final go/no-go review of Ariane 6 will occur this summer, with Ariane 6’s inaugural flight scheduled for 2020.

Safran Chief Financial Officer Bernard Delpit said during the conference call that the company expected final signatures for full consolidation of ASL “very soon. As for the closing, it will be at the end of this semester. So we expect the joint venture to be fully operational in July.”

ASL officials have said an early July finalization of ASL’s structure will allow the company to make the kind of binding financial commitments to ESA that the agency has set as a requirement for releasing the remaining Ariane 6 development funding.

LES MUREAUX. France – Europe’s rocket industry has gone 40 years by integrating its Ariane rockets vertically and then rolling them out by rail, upright, to the launch pad. That is about to end.

The historical practice has produced the Final Assembly Building at Europe’s Guiana Space Center, an 83-meter-high steel structure.

But following a decision by Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL) and the European Space Agency, the future Ariane 6 rocket will be assembled horizontally as a cost-saving measure.

Patrick Bonguet, head of Ariane 6 development at ASL, described some of the benefits of the change on April 6 during a press briefing at ASL’s facility here. Here are excerpts from his remarks.

“We are now in this mindset transformation, where people don’t now see all the benefits. For horizontal integration, the buildings are much more simple. There are no cranes and no hazardous moving operations. It also permits a good growth potential since it’s the kind of building you can expand.

“But the main benefit from horizontal integration is that the process is better able to support people. With vertical operations, people are alone on their platform at 20, 50 or 60 meters high. Nobody sees them. If they have a problem they have to call someone, or to go down and look for equipment or documentation.

“With horizontal, everything is visible. The second main interest, which is not so obvious immediately, is that it allows the creation of a production flow through a moving line. This creates a sense of urgency in the production. You do not just stand there while there is a problem when you have several integration stands in parallel.

“When you have a problem on one stand, you work on another one and then do catch-up on the first one. This is the discipline of the flow. We expect this will result in direct savings, but also indirect savings by improving the way we work and the way we deal with quality issues, providing quicker support to the teams and driving the process improvement.

“I should add that we have decided not to bother our customers with this aspect, unlike some of our competitors. Customers don’t much like having their spacecraft horizontal, then integrated onto the launcher and vibrating while going to the launch pad.

“They will be integrated as they are today – vertically. We put the fairing on them, and then at the last moment only are they put onto the launcher.”

LES MUREAUX, France – Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 rocket remains on track for a 2020 first launch with a cost structure allowing the heavier Ariane 64 version to advertise per-kilogram prices below today’s Space X Falcon 9, European government and industry officials said April 6.

They said they saw no roadblocks to the 2020 first-flight date despite what they described as noncritical delays that have no impact on the rocket’s design, performance or cost targets.

These issues include a delay of several months in the ramp-up of Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL), which is the Ariane 6 prime contractor, due to tax issues in France, and an extended antitrust review by the European Commission of ASL’s plan to become the dominant shareholder of the Arianespace commercial launch consortium.

Addressing a press briefing here at Airbus Safran Launchers’ production site, ASL Chief Executive Alain Charmeau said he expected the expected transfer of cash from Safran to Airbus to occur before the end of April.

Airbus and Safran had agreed that Safran would pay Airbus 800 million euros ($874 million) in cash, in addition to its rocket-engine manufacturing capability, to become a 50-50 ASL shareholder with Airbus.

Airbus officials since the beginning of the year have been negotiating with French tax authorities to determine how to minimize the tax bite of the cash transfer, which industry officials could be as high as 500 million euros, leaving Airbus with a net of just 300 million euros.

Delays in the cash transfer have meant that ASL, which is expected to count 8,000 employees, has been operating with only around 400 employees. In addition, it has made it difficult for the initial ASL team to present a fixed-price Ariane 6 production proposal to the 22-nation European Space Agency, which is financing the majority of Ariane 6 development.

Charmeau and other officials attending the briefing said there has been positive movement on the tax issue in recent days and that a late-April conclusion appeared possible.

ASL then will provide its Ariane 6 cost proposal – Charmeau called it a “fixed price with variations” – by the end of April. Negotiations on the details will follow, after which ESA will conduct a scheduled Program Implementation Review.

“We will agree with ESA on an escalation formula [in contract pricing] in order to update the prices according to certain criteria between now and the end of the development phase,” Charmeau said. “It’s an inflation computation.”

ESA will submit its conclusions of its review, which its governments had ordered as a condition of releasing the full complement of Ariane 6 funding — to the agency’s Ariane 6 participating nations in time for a decision by ESA’s ruling council on Sept. 13.

The European Commission, which is the executive arm of the 28-nation European Union, has already approved ASL’s formation with several minor caveats. But ASL’s proposal to purchase the 35 percent stake in Arianespace now held by the French government faces a deeper review.

The commission has said the review is likely to end, possibly with requirements that ASL must meet, by mid-July.

Airbus officials in the past have referred to the creation of ASL, the signing of the ESA Ariane 6 contract and the de facto takeover of Arianespace as an indivisible package indispensable for the success of the Ariane 6 project.

Charmeau repeated this assessment during the briefing, but said that the commission’s antitrust investigation “will have no effect” on the Ariane 6 design and contract schedule, assuming that the review is finished by September.

The commission is looking at whether Arianespace’s minority shareholders, who are Ariane 6 contractors, will be protected once Airbus Safran Launchers raises its Arianespace shareholding to 74 percent from today’s 39 percent.

The commission is also reviewing concerns expressed by satellite builders that Airbus, which is a major manufacturer of commercial satellites, might give its own satellites preferential treatment in setting the Ariane 6 manufest.

Ariane 6 comes in two versions. The Ariane 62 has two solid-fueled strap-on boosters, which also serve as the first stage of Europe’s Vega small-satellite launcher, and is capable of placing a 5,000-kilogram satellite into geostationary transfer orbit.

The Ariane 64 carries four strap-on boosters and can place satellites weighing a combined 10,500 kilograms into that orbit, which is where most commercial telecommunications satellites operate.

Patrick Bonguet, Ariane 6 program head at ASL, said Ariane 6 is keeping to its promise of reducing per-kilogram launch prices by 40-50 percent compared to today’s Ariane 5.

The goal, as it was in the beginning, is to complete with Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. “Ariane 6 will have twice the mass and twice the volume of the Falcon 9, at less than twice the price,” Bonguet said.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Upgrade recently demonstrated its ability to carry a 5,300-kilogram telecommunications satellite to geostationary transfer orbit by stretching its capacity to the limit.

Bonguet was referring to a fully loaded Ariane 6, with 10,500 kilograms of satellite payload, and comparing that launch’s price to today’s Falcon 9, which typically carries just one geostationary-orbit satellite per launch.

SpaceX prices are typically around $60 million per commercial launch. By the time the Ariane 6 enters service – the initial launch in mid-2020 is scheduled to lead to the full cadence of 11-12 missions per year by 2023 – SpaceX plans to be reusing its Falcon 9 first stage on a regular basis.

SpaceX has said reusing the stage should allow them to reduce Falcon 9 prices by around 30 percent.

• Second launch in 2016 from Kourou puts Eutelsat telecommunications satellite into orbit
• Latest successful flight was performed on time, once again demonstrating the European launcher’s reliability

Ariane 5 has been successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, for the 71st time in a row, confirming the reliability and sophistication of the European launcher, which put the satellite, weighing more than 6.5 tonnes, into geostationary transfer orbit.

“This second successful launch of the year for a single satellite underlines the extraordinary reliability of the Ariane 5 European launcher, as well as its capability to fully meet our customers’ needs. As one of the industry leader of the programme, we are proud to be part of the team which makes Ariane 5 one of the most highly efficient and sophisticated launchers in the world” said François Auque, Head of Space Systems.

Airbus Defence and Space, a 50% shareholder in Airbus Safran Launchers, is the main industrial partner of the Ariane 5 programme. Drawing on the expertise the company has acquired and the investments it has made for more than 10 years, Ariane 5 has become the most reliable commercial launcher on the global market and has increased its geostationary orbit payload capacity by almost two tonnes. Representing cutting-edge European expertise, the Ariane 5 launcher has been specially designed to inject heavy payloads into orbit.

About Airbus Defence and Space

Airbus Defence and Space, a division of Airbus Group, is Europe’s number one defence and space enterprise and the second largest space business worldwide. Its activities include space, military aircraft and related systems and services. It employs more than 38,000 people and in 2015 generated revenues of over 13 billion Euros.

- Airbus Defence and Space’s microwave radiometer on board Sentinel-3A will correct measurement inaccuracies due to water vapour in the atmosphere
- Near-real-time ocean, ice and land monitoring satellite was orbited by a Rockot launcher

The first of the two flight models of the Sentinel-3 satellites, Sentinel-3A, primed by Thales Alenia Space, was launched on a Rockot launcher, from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in Russia.

On board Sentinel-3A is an Airbus Defence and Space-built microwave radiometer (MWR) used to remove signal errors caused by water vapour in the atmosphere. This allows accurate tracking over a variety of watery surfaces: open ocean, coastal sea zones, sea ice and inland waters. This 26 kg radiometer measures the thermal radiation emitted by Earth, enabling signal delays caused by moisture in the troposphere to be added to the altimeter pulses, to deliver more accurate data.

Airbus Defence and Space was also responsible for the thermal architecture of the service and payload interface module, which will ensure the correct performance under the extreme temperature variations to which the satellite will be subjected once in orbit, and a cryo-cooler system for the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) instrument.

The Sentinel-3 mission is specifically designed to ensure long-term collection and operational delivery of high-quality measurements for ocean, land and atmospheric services. The satellites build upon the heritage and data from the Airbus-built missions of ERS, Envisat and SPOT, and include enhancements to meet the operational revisit requirements and to facilitate new products and an evolution of services. It will extend observations to inland waters and coastal zones.

The primary application of the Sentinel-3 mission is to monitor the world’s oceans, measuring the temperature, colour and height of the sea surface and the thickness of sea ice. The data produced will allow scientists to monitor sea-level change and sea-surface temperature, manage water quality, track marine pollution and biological productivity.

Sentinel-3 will also provide a land-monitoring service with wildfire detection, land-cover mapping and vegetation health monitoring, providing complementary data to the multispectral optical mission of Sentinel-2.

Sentinel-3A is the size of a small car with a mass of 1150 kg and is designed for an operating life of seven years.

Eurockot Launch Services GmbH is the Bremen, Germany, based joint venture of Airbus Safran Launchers and Space Center Khrunichev. In addition to the Sentinel-3A launch Eurockot will orbit two more satellites for Europe´s Copernicus programme.

Airbus Defence and Space

Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus Group formed by combining the business activities of Cassidian, Astrium and Airbus Military. The new division is Europe’s number one defence and space enterprise, the second largest space business worldwide and among the top ten global defence enterprises. It employs more than 38,000 employees generating revenues of approximately €13 billion per year.

Ariane 5 has been flawlessly launched from Kourou, French Guiana, for the 70th consecutive time, building on the European launcher’s track record. During this latest mission, Ariane 5 placed a telecommunications satellite weighing around 6.5 tonnes in transfer orbit.

“This first successful flight in 2016 underlines again the extraordinary reliability of Europe’s Ariane 5 launcher, one of the world’s largest and most complex launch systems. As its main industrial partner, we are proud to form part of this success story,” said François Auque, Head of Space Systems at Airbus Defence and Space.

Airbus Defence and Space, a 50% shareholder in Airbus Safran Launchers, is the main industrial partner in the Ariane 5 programme. The industrial network brings together more than 550 companies in 12 European countries. Drawing on the expertise the company has acquired and the investments it has made over more than 10 years, Ariane 5 has become the most reliable commercial launcher on the global market and has increased its geostationary orbit payload capacity by almost two tonnes. Representing cutting-edge European expertise, the Ariane 5 launcher has been specially designed to inject heavy payloads into orbit.

Airbus Defence and Space

Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus Group formed by combining the business activities of Cassidian, Astrium and Airbus Military. The new division is Europe’s number one defence and space enterprise, the second largest space business worldwide and among the top ten global defence enterprises. It employs some 38,000 employees generating revenues of approximately €13 billion per year.